[ad_1]
MTN’s $ 25 million donation to support the African Union (AU) Covid-19 vaccination program is on track to administer 165,000 AstraZeneca dose to healthcare workers.
The vaccines arrived in the country two days ago and were received at the Kotoka International Airport by Dr. Mathew Kyeremeh, President of the Group of Health Products for Covid-19 of the Ministry of Health.
Dr. Mathew Kyeremeh expressed his gratitude to MTN and said the vaccines were to be administered to people with underlying conditions and frontline workers.
In a major commitment to the health of the continent, MTN pledged in January 2021 to accelerate the critical AU program.
This was aimed at securing up to seven million doses of the Covid-19 vaccine overall, to be distributed across the 55 UA member states, specifically for healthcare workers.
“While the facilitation of the vaccination program is in the hands of the Africa CDC and the African Union Vaccine Procurement Task Force (AVATT), MTN is encouraged to see a clear plan and strong and accelerated movement to keep Africa and its people safe and healthy.
“This is part of our ongoing commitment to ensuring that Ghana and Africa as a whole are not left behind,” says Selorm Adadevoh, CEO of MTN Ghana.
“As a company committed to the prosperity and advancement of Ghana and indeed the continent, on MTN’s part, we are proud to be able to make a humble contribution to the millions of doses of vaccines needed to achieve herd immunity,” says Selorm. .
“We are excited and grateful to receive this part of the first million doses as part of the UA accelerated vaccine program, supported by MTN.
“While we are still in the early stages of the vaccine race, this initial contribution offers very welcome relief as we begin to see the program become a reality for the benefit of our dedicated healthcare workers,” says the Hon. Kwaku Agyeman-Manu, Minister of Health.
MTN continues to call on all large companies in industry sectors to play their part in contributing to this and similar initiatives that can accelerate the launch of much-needed vaccines to help control the virus.
Following the coronavirus outbreak in Ghana, the MTN Ghana Foundation has supported Ghanaians with some important interventions to reduce the impact of the pandemic.
MTN donated ¢ 5 million in PPE to the National Covid Trust Fund. Once again, the Foundation donated essential equipment to the Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research to enable rapid data processing and testing.
The Foundation also donated more than 80.00 masks to 30 hospitals across the country. With the increase in Covid-19 cases in 2021, the Foundation recently donated PPE to 15 secondary schools and 29 hospitals.
MTN Ghana also scored zero for several public websites providing health and other information related to Covid-19, as well as more than 200 websites for academic use by public and private educational institutions.
Other educational campaigns such as the ‘BE WISE’ campaign and MTN’s ‘#WearItForMe’ global marketing initiative were carried out to raise awareness of the importance of properly wearing a mask to combat the spread of the virus.
At the end of December 2020, the cumulative value of MTN Ghana’s efforts to combat Covid-19 was ¢ 139 million.
