He was the first native to work with Dr G. T. Saunders, who was the first specialist epidemiologist and was instrumental in the control of trypanosomiasis in the country.
[3] He was a former Rockefeller Travelling Fellow and later became the first Ghanaian to be appointed Chief Medical Officer to the Ministry of Health in the Gold Coast in 1955.
[5] He was removed from his chief medic role in 1959 by Kwame Nkrumah, who was at the time the Prime Minister of Ghana.
He subsequently joined the World Health Organization and was based in Brazzaville in the Republic of the Congo.
[3] In 1966, Akwei was appointed Commissioner for Health by the NLC military government, a position he held until the return of democratic rule in 1969.