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- The World Health Organisation’s vaccine-sharing scheme COVAX delivered its first shots to Ghana on Wednesday as efforts to vaccinate the world’s poorer countries gain traction
- 600,000 doses of the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine produced by the Serum Institute of India have landed in Ghana’s capital Accra
- Health workers, those with underlying health issues and those aged over 60 will be the first to receive the doses
- COVAX was established roughly eight months ago, designed to collect funds from wealthier countries and non-profits to help distribute doses equally around the world
- It aims to deliver almost two billion doses this year, including 1.8 billion to poorer countries at no cost to their governments
The World Health Organisation’s vaccine-sharing scheme COVAX delivered its first shots to Ghana on Wednesday as efforts to vaccinate the world’s poorer countries gain traction.
600,000 doses of the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine produced by the Serum Institute of India landed in Ghana’s capital Accra, almost a year after the WHO declared COVID-19 a global pandemic.
Representatives of the WHO and the United Nations children’s agency UNICEF described the delivery as a “momentous” step.
“In the days ahead, frontline workers will begin to receive vaccines, and the next phase in the fight against this disease can begin — the ramping up of the largest immunisation campaign in history,” said UNICEF Executive Director Henrietta Fore.
Established roughly eight months ago, the COVAX initiative is designed to collect funds from wealthier countries and non-profits to help distribute doses equally around the world.
“The first segment of the population that will receive the 600,000 doses will be health workers, adults 60 years and over, people with underlying health conditions,” Ghana’s government said on Wednesday.
A number of senior government officials, teachers, security personnel and essential workers in Accra, as well as the country’s second city Kumasi, will also receive doses.
Ghana has reported 81,200 infections so far and 584 deaths, with as many people dying in the first two months of this year as in the whole of 2020.
The COVAX program aims to deliver almost two billion doses this year, including 1.8 billion to poorer countries at no cost to their governments.
Earlier this week, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus urged wealthy nations to share vaccine doses with COVAX, warning that the goal of equitable distribution was “in jeopardy”.
“Today is a major first step towards realising our shared vision of vaccine equity, but it’s just the beginning,” he said on Wednesday.
He noted that 210 million doses of available vaccines have been administered globally so far, but that half of those are in just two countries and more than 200 countries were yet to administer a single dose.
