Senior White House official comments on Ghana’s historic COVAX consignment

Andy Slavitt, a top official in the United States government has commented on Ghana’s receipt of the first consignment of vaccines under the WHO-led COVAX platform.

Slavitt, a White House Senior Advisor on Biden’s COVID Response in a Twitter post noted that the US had joined the platform to ‘help vaccinate the globe.’

“Today Ghana became the first of 92 countries to begin receiving vaccinations through COVAX, which the US has joined to help vaccinate the globe. 600,000 doses of AstraZeneca’s vaccine was delivered,” his post read.

The said event took place on Wednesday morning when an Emirates flight touched down at the Kotoka International Airport, KIA; with doses of the vaccine.

COVAX is co-led by the WHO, the GAVI vaccines alliance, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), and UNICEF.

It was launched in June 2020 to try to prevent poorer countries from being pushed to the back of the queue for COVID-19 vaccines as wealthier nations bought up billions of doses for their populations.

COVAX said this month that it had allocated the first tranche of 330 million doses of vaccines for 145 countries, including several in West Africa.

The delivery comes almost a year after the WHO first described the novel coronavirus as a global pandemic and eight months after the launch of the COVAX initiative, aimed at pooling funds from wealthier countries and non-profits to develop a vaccine and distribute it equitably around the world.

The shots, part of an initial tranche of deliveries for several low and middle-income countries, will be used to kick-start a vaccination drive that will prioritise frontline health workers and others at high risk of infection.

“This is a momentous occasion, as the arrival of the COVID-19 vaccines into Ghana is critical in bringing the pandemic to an end,” Anne-Claire Dufay of UNICEF Ghana and WHO country representative Francis Kasolo said in the statement.

“The only way out of this crisis is to ensure that vaccinations are available for all.”