WTO Director-General lauds arrival of historic coronavirus vaccines to Ghana

The newly appointed Director-General of the World Trade Organisation, Dr Ngozi Okonji-Iweala has commended the arrival of Coronavirus vaccines to Ghana.

Ghana in the early hours of Wednesday February 24 became the first African country to receive coronavirus vaccines from the COVID-19 Vaccines Advance Market Commitment (COVAX AMC) facility. The consignment comprisedon 600,000 doses of the AstraZeneca/Oxford model, licensed to Serum Institute of India (SII) – referred to as “AZ/SII”

Reacting to the arrival of the vaccines, Dr Okonji-Iweala in a tweet shared on Wednesday February 24 read, “Very happy to see first delivery of #COVAX supported vaccines to Ghana. Excited to see more countries following. Nigeria’s supplies should be on its way soon. No trade restrictions or bureaucracy should get in the way. @wto must be part of the solution. @gavi @ACTAccelerator”

For the first consignment of the vaccines, Ghana received some 600,000 doses to aid the fight against the pandemic.

It is expected that the second tranche of the supply will come up to about 1.5 million doses expected to be delivered by June 2021 under the COVAX AMC facility.

Government on the other hand through the Ministry of Information has already outlined priority groups that will be administered the first batch of the vaccines starting March 2, 2021.

Presidential advisor on Health, Dr. Anthony Nsiah Asare has also disclosed President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo will be administered the first jab of the vaccine. The move is expected to encourage the public about the safety and efficiency of the vaccines.

Additionally, government says the arrival of the first batch of vaccines would not be the only supply of vaccines it intends to receive or procure.

See the tweet below:

Very happy to see first delivery of #COVAX supported vaccines to Ghana. Excited to see more countries following. Nigeria’s supplies should be on its way soon. No trade restrictions or bureaucracy should get in the way. @WTO must be part of the solution. @gavi @ACTAccelerator https://t.co/FzX8BHgCa9

— Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala (@NOIweala) February 24, 2021