Accra, Ghana:
Ghana is to get Wednesday the initial shipment of Covid-19 vaccines from Covax, a worldwide scheme to procure and distribute inoculations for absolutely free to poor nations, UNICEF and the World Health Organization mentioned.
“We are pleased that Ghana has become the first country to receive the Covid-19 vaccines from the Covax facility,” UNICEF, which organised the shipment from Mumbai, mentioned in a joint statement with the WHO.
It mentioned the 600,000 doses are aspect of an initial tranche of deliveries of the AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine licensed to the Serum Institute of India, “which represent part of the first wave of Covid vaccines headed to several low and middle-income countries.”
The West African nation has recorded 80,759 Covid-19 situations and 582 deaths considering that the commence of the pandemic. These figures are believed to fall brief of the genuine toll as the quantity of tests is low.
Frontline workers in Ghana are meant to be the initial to get the vaccine.
“In the days ahead, frontline workers will begin to receive vaccines,” UNICEF Executive Director Henrietta Fore mentioned.
“The next phase in the fight against this disease can begin – the ramping up of the largest immunization campaign in history.”
Covax, led by Gavi the Vaccine Alliance, the WHO and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), mentioned it would provide two billion doses of Covid-19 vaccines to its members by the finish of the year, which includes 2,412,000 doses to Ghana.
Schools in the nation reopened in January just after a 10-month closure, but substantial social gatherings are banned and land and sea borders have remained closed considering that March 2020.
Ghana’s financial development is anticipated to plummet this year to its lowest in 3 decades, to .9 % according to the International Monetary Fund, from 6.5 % in 2019.
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