Ghana has taken delivery of the second shipment of COVID-19 vaccines from India.
The 50,000 pieces of vaccines delivered through the courtesy of the Government of India arrived at the Kotoka International Airport on Friday, December 5, 2021.
Ghana’s Foreign Affairs Minister Shirley Ayorkor Botchwey, during a short ceremony to receive the vaccines, said: “The donation, coming just few days after the historic delivery of Six Hundred Thousand doses of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccines to Ghana, under the COVAX Initiative, is certainly noteworthy support to our fight against the COVID-19 pandemic and reflects the very cordial and fraternal relations between Ghana and India. Furthermore, it underscores the mutual commitment of our two governments to work in solidarity and partnership to address common challenges, including the COVID-19 pandemic”.
Ghana has started administering the first tranche of AstraZeneca/Oxford Covid-19 vaccine which was received on February 24, 2021.
The first shipment of the vaccines from Covax was backed by the World Health Organization as part of efforts to procure and distribute inoculations for free to poor countries.
“These 600,000 Covax vaccines are part 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,” said UNICEF, which organised the shipment from Mumbai, in a joint statement with the WHO.
Covax has said it would deliver two billion doses of COVID-19 vaccines globally by the end of 2021.