Ghana received the first shipment of COVID-19 vaccines from COVAX on Wednesday, a global scheme to obtain and distribute free vaccinations as the world competes to contain the pandemic.
COVAX, launched in April last year to ensure a fairer distribution of coronavirus vaccines between rich and poor countries, said it would deliver 2 billion doses to its members by the end of the year.
“We are pleased that Ghana has become the first country to receive COVID-19 vaccines from the COVAX facility,” said the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), which organized the broadcast from Mumbai, in a joint statement with the World Health Organization (WHO). – both supporters of COVAX.
The 600,000 doses of the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine, licensed by the world’s largest vaccine manufacturer, the Serum Institute of India, are said to be part of a first-line delivery package “on its way to several low- and middle-income countries.”
The Emirates flight with the vaccines was affected at Accra International Airport Kotoka shortly after 7:40 GMT, in images broadcast on television. COVAX had said it aimed to deliver 2,412,000 doses of the vaccine to Ghana.
“This morning, #Ghana will make history as the first country in the world to receive these vaccines. Together, we can ensure that everyone can be protected,” UNICEF Ghana said in a statement on Twitter.
According to local media, the country’s food and drug authority has approved the use of the vaccines manufactured in India and the Sputnik V vaccine from Russia. The West African nation has registered 80,759 COVID-19 cases and 582 deaths since the pandemic began. These figures are believed to be below the actual tolls because the number of tests is low. Health workers and other front-line staff are thought to be among the first to receive doses.
“In the coming days, front-line workers will start receiving vaccines,” said Henrietta Fore, UNICEF’s Executive Director. “The next phase in the fight against this disease can begin – the rearmament of the largest vaccination campaign in history.”
COVAX, led by Gavi the Vaccine Alliance, WHO and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), had expected a first round of deliveries in March with some early deliveries occurring in late February.
The continent, relatively spared by the pandemic, was the last except Oceania to reach the threshold of 100,000 deaths, which Europe passed in April 2020. At the height of the pandemic in January, Africa had 906 deaths per day.
To speed up the immunization of the continent’s 1.3 billion people, the African Union said it had secured 270 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines for delivery this year.
The WHO on Monday blew up rich countries for taking COVID-19 vaccines and blocked the way for poorer countries to get them as well. WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that some rich countries’ direct business with manufacturers meant that previously agreed vaccination allocations for poorer countries, via the COVAX program, were reduced. Ghebreyesus called on rich countries to share vaccine doses with COVAX, saying the goal of a fair distribution was “in jeopardy.”
“To date, 210 million doses of vaccine have been administered globally, but half of them are found in only two countries,” Ghebreyesus said in Geneva on Tuesday. “More than 200 countries have not yet administered a single dose.”
Approximately 145 participating economies are set to receive 337.2 million doses – enough to vaccinate just over 3 percent of their total populations. COVAX has said it hopes to raise the figure to up to 27% in lower-income countries by the end of December.
New variants of the virus, including in neighboring Nigeria, are spreading across the continent with the British and South African variants recorded in cases in Ghana.
“It is strongly recommended for countries to use the AstraZeneca vaccine even if … the new variants are present,” the WHO said in a statement last week.
In Ghana, schools reopened in January after a ten-month closure, but major social gatherings are banned and land and sea borders have been closed since March 2020. Ghana’s economic growth is expected to fall this year to its lowest in three decades, to 0.9 according to International Monetary Fund (IMF), from 6.5% in 2019.
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