Covid-19: COVAX Delivers Its First Batch Of Vaccines To Ghana

According to new reports, Ghana has become the first country to receive coronavirus vaccines through the Covax vaccine-sharing initiative.

The World Health Organization (WHO) through the COVAX initiative aims to deliver about two billion doses of Covid-19 vaccines globally, to ensure fair sharing of vaccines among all nations.

Many rich nations were recently accused of buying or ordering more vaccines than they need.

Countries like Canada had ordered 338 million vaccines to inoculate their citizens. An amount that can vaccinate its population of 37,956,557 five times over.

A total of 600,000 doses of the vaccine developed by AstraZeneca and Oxford University arrived in Ghana’s capital Accra on Wednesday.

Vaccinations are expected to start there next week.

In a joint statement, the WHO and the United Nations children’s fund (Unicef) said it was a “momentous occasion”.

“The arrival of the Covid-19 vaccines into Ghana is critical in bringing the pandemic to an end,” they said.

Ghana has recorded more than 80,700 cases of coronavirus and 580 deaths since the pandemic began. These numbers are believed to fall short of the actual toll because of low levels of testing.

The WHO and Unicef said the shipment represented “part of the first wave of Covid vaccines headed to several low-and middle-income countries”.

Though the vaccines are not generally intended for children, Unicef is involved in the scheme because of its expertise in procurement and the logistics of vaccine delivery.