Ghana is the first country to receive free vaccines via Covax mechanism
Ghana becomes the first country to receive corona vaccines funded by the UN mechanism Covax. UNICEF and the World Health Organisation (WHO) report this. The solidarity mechanism was set up to help countries that have difficulty buying vaccines themselves.
“Ghana will receive 600,000 doses of the Oxford and AstraZeneca vaccine from manufacturer Serum Institute of India. These vaccines were sent by Unicef from Mumbai to Accra (capital of Ghana, ed.) and are part of the first shipment of corona vaccines for low–and middle–income countries,” said a WHO and Unicef press release.
“This delivery heralds the beginning of what is to be the largest delivery and distribution of vaccines in history.”
In Ghana, in West Africa, 80,759 corona infections and 582 deaths have been recorded. However, the actual figures are higher, as few tests are carried out.
The country has a population of 30 million. With the 600,000 doses, 300,000 inhabitants can be vaccinated. Caregivers will be the first to be vaccinated, according to the WHO and UNICEF press release.
Equal access for all
The Covax mechanism aims to ensure that 92 low–and middle–income countries also have access to vaccine doses.
Covax, founded by WHO, the Vaccine Alliance, and the Coalition for Innovations in Pandemic Preparedness, has agreed to buy 2 billion doses by 2021 and the possibility of buying another billion.
The system was set up to prevent rich countries from buying up all the vaccine doses. On Monday, WHO boss Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus accused certain rich countries of undermining the Covax system by appealing directly to manufacturers to order more doses.
