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At least 600,000 doses of the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine arrive in the Ghanaian capital as part of efforts for equitable global access to COVID injections.
Ghana has become the first country to receive vaccines through the UN-backed COVAX scheme, which aims to bring COVID-19 vaccines to the world’s most vulnerable people, in a global effort to contain the coronavirus pandemic.
A flight carrying 600,000 doses of the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine produced by the Serum Institute of India landed in the Ghanaian capital Accra, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) said in a joint statement on Wednesday.
The handover comes nearly a year after the WHO first described the new coronavirus as a global pandemic and eight months after the launch of the COVAX initiative, which aims to raise funds from richer countries and non-profit organizations to develop a COVID-19 vaccine and distribute it. equally throughout the world.
“This is a momentous occasion as the arrival of COVID-19 vaccines in Ghana is critical to ending the pandemic,” UNICEF Ghana’s Anne-Claire Dufay and WHO Country Representative Francis said in the statement. Kasolo.
“These 600,000 COVAX vaccines are part of an initial tranche of deliveries … representing part of the first wave of COVID vaccines targeting several low- and middle-income countries.”
The vaccines will be used to launch a vaccination campaign that will prioritize front-line health workers and others at high risk, according to a plan unveiled by Ghanaian health officials on Friday.
“The shipments … represent the beginning of what should be the largest vaccine procurement and supply operation in history,” the statement added.
The COVAX facility plans to deliver about 2 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccines this year.
This is an unprecedented global effort to ensure that all citizens have access to vaccines. pic.twitter.com/ItvX8nEkPN
– UNICEF (@UNICEF) February 24, 2021
The deployment in Ghana is a milestone for the initiative attempting to bridge a politically sensitive gap between the millions of people who get vaccinated in the wealthiest countries and the comparatively few who have received vaccinations in the less developed parts of the world.
Its goal is to deliver a total of 2.3 billion doses by the end of the year, including 1.8 billion to the poorest countries at no cost to their governments, and cover up to 20 percent of the countries’ population. But it will not be enough for nations to achieve herd immunity and effectively contain the spread of the virus.
“No one is safe until everyone is safe … multilateral collaboration is the best way to defeat this pandemic,” a spokesperson for the GAVI vaccine alliance told Al Jazeera earlier this month.
“Equitable global access to a vaccine, in particular by protecting healthcare workers and those most at risk … is the only way to mitigate the economic and public health impact of the pandemic on individuals, communities and nations “
The African Union (AU) has been trying to help its 55 member states buy more doses in an effort to immunize 60 percent of the continent’s 1.3 billion people for three years. Last week, his vaccine team said 270 million doses of the AstraZeneca, Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson vaccines secured for delivery this year had been taken.
China has donated small batches of its Sinopharm vaccine to countries such as Zimbabwe and Equatorial Guinea. And Russia has offered to supply 300 million doses of its Sputnik V vaccine to the African Union plan along with a financing package.
But many countries rely heavily on COVAX.
On Tuesday, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus urged rich nations to share vaccine doses with COVAX, saying the goal of equitable distribution was “in jeopardy.”
“So far 210 million doses of vaccines have been administered worldwide, but half of them are found in just two countries,” Tedros said in Geneva.
COVAX is co-led by WHO, the GAVI vaccine alliance, the Coalition for Innovations in Epidemic Preparedness (CEPI), and UNICEF.
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