Students Paid For Ebola Drugs Trial

Coalition for Ghana's Independence Now (CGIN), a pressure group, has claimed that the government is going to allow Ghanaians to be used for an Ebola vaccines trial.

According to the coalition, starrfmonline.com recently reported that the University of Health and Allied Sciences was spearheading the project which was expected to kick off at Hohoe in the Volta Region soon. It added that health officials had already approached students of the Hohoe Midwifery Training School to volunteer for the trial.

The CGIN said the Food and Drugs Authority (FDA) confirmed to the Accra-based radio station that it was testing the vaccine before it could give authorization for the trial to take off.

According to the coalition, the students had been promised GH¢200 each and mobile phones. They would also receive other compensations such as transport fares, depending on how the trial would go.

However, the Coalition said in a statement, 'Investigations by Starr FM under-cover team have made public a clandestine attempt by authorities to use midwifery students at Hohoe in the Volta Region for human experiment on the Ebola vaccine in a country with no Ebola case.

'We want to say without fear or favour that Ebola is not just a disease but rather a well-planned business. A business where people have created an artificial problem and now looking for a market to sell the solution and we are telling Ghanaians beforehand that there is and will be no way by which Ghana can go through this Ebola virus human experiment without Ebola being spread countrywide.

'We also would want Ghanaians to know that since there is not a single case of Ebola or patient in Ghana, healthy people would have to be infected with the Ebola virus before the said vaccine is administered to them for a gamble.

'It is therefore from the above illogical scenario that we consider the intended human experimentation of Ebola in Ghana as criminal, human right abuse, thievery and a total disrespect of Ghanaians as human beings.'

It added, 'CGIN is not crying wolf when there is none, but we are guided by history, logic and critical thinking and our responsibility as citizens to play our role of national security.'

Ebola outbreak, CGIN noted, which is 100% sure to happen in Ghana should this human trials be allowed to go on, would be the greatest national security threat the country would ever face. 'The manufactures of the so-called Ebola vaccine will look on till a larger number of Ghanaians are killed by the disease here in Ghana before the vaccine will be released and this would happen to make government buy the vaccine at any price, the Coalition observed.

NDC Protests
The ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) in the Volta Region has asked the Ministry of Health to immediately call off the Ebola vaccine trial in the region.

The regional executives described in a statement yesterday that the exercise is 'unfortunate' adding that it was tantamount to using them as 'human guinea pigs.'

'We are not going to sit down for our people to be used as guinea pigs in a needless experiment,' they charged.

By William Yaw Owusu