First Covid-19 vaccine doses dispatched by Covax arrive in Ghana

A flight carrying 600,000 doses of the AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine produced by the Serum Institute of India landed in Ghana’s capital Accra on Wednesday.

In a statement, Ghana said the doses were the first consignment delivered by Covax, which is signed up by 92 other countries.

More than 80,700 people in Ghana have been confirmed infected and 580 have died, according to a Reuters tally.

"The first segment of the population that will receive the doses will be health workers, adults 60 years and over, people with underlying health conditions," Health minister-designate Kwaku Agyeman Manu said.

He said that from March 2, the Covid-19 vaccines will be deployed in health facilities and designated centres in those geographical regions.

"The government remains resolute at ensuring the welfare of all Ghanaians and is making frantic efforts to acquire adequate vaccines to cover the entire population through bilateral and multilateral agencies," he said.

The roll-out in Ghana is a milestone for Covax, which is trying to narrow a politically sensitive gap between the millions of people being vaccinated in wealthier countries and the comparatively few who have received shots in less developed parts of the world.

It plans to deliver nearly two billion vaccine doses this year, including 1.8 billion to poorer countries at no cost to their governments, and to cover up to 20% of countries’ populations.

But it will not be sufficient for nations to reach herd immunity and effectively contain the spread of the virus.

Additional reporting by Reuters