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Ghana received 600,000 doses of Covid-19 vaccine on February 24.
On Wednesday February 27, 2021, Ghana became the First Nation in the world to receive 600,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine.
The World Health Organization’s (WHO) global sharing program aims to deliver more than 2.3 billion doses by the end of the year, including 1.8 billion to the poorest countries, at no cost for their governments.
However, some Ghanaians wondered why Ghana, a middle-income country, was benefiting from a program aimed at the poorest countries in the world.
Bryan Pearson, who spent many years editing the Africa Health Journal, a leading medical publication, felt that Ghana’s reputation for effective vaccine management in the past could have placed it above other countries.
“The question was asked this morning to John Nkengasong, head of Africa CDC as to why Ghana was chosen first, he said: Well the truth is I don’t know but someone has to be the first, you know? It is therefore difficult to know which criteria were used ”.
“I’m sure COVAX says who’s ready, not ready? Because the whole process can be a big waste of money if not managed well and especially with donations, you want them to go to places that are already well placed to handle them, and I think Ghana has a fairly good reputation in vaccine management. like polio and no doubt came up with a strong protocol to show they were ready and able to handle the process. “
I suspect they’ve been pretty strong in the process, as opposed to labeling Ghana as a developing country, ”he added.
GAVI / COVAX program
The first phase, which corresponds to the 600,000 doses received on February 24, 2021, takes place within the framework of the vaccine alliance, the GAVI COVAX program.
Prior to the COVID -19 outbreak, vaccines in Ghana were free under the vaccine alliance, GAVI.
Over the years, the alliance has helped immunize nearly half of the world’s children against deadly and debilitating infectious diseases.
Following the Covid-19 outbreak, GAVI formed an alliance called the COVAX Facility, a global initiative working on equitable access to the COVID-19 vaccine to help developing countries, including African countries, acquire vaccines.
To help fund this initiative, countries have pledged nearly US $ 1 billion to support equitable access to the COVID-19 vaccine under the GAVI COVAX AMC.
The UK has pledged around US $ 640 million.
This commitment includes £ 1 of matching funding for every US $ 4 committed by others, up to an amount of £ 250 million.
This is in addition to the US $ 61 million pledged by the UK on June 4, bringing the total contribution to US $ 701 million, while the Canadian government pledged a total of US $ 191 million.
The German government also pledged US $ 120 million at the World Vaccine Summit as special funds for Gavi to fight COVID-19.
The Italian government, in contrast, pledged a total contribution of US $ 102 million while Sweden pledged around US $ 12 million.
Phase two
To complement COVAX’s efforts, the African Union has secured 670 million doses of vaccine for the continent, distributed in 2021 and 2022 as countries secure adequate funding.
The African Import-Export Bank will facilitate payments by providing advance purchase commitment guarantees of up to $ 2 billion to COVID vaccine manufacturers on behalf of these countries.
Twenty-six countries have placed orders through this mechanism, and Bryan Pearson said they will hopefully make an announcement within the next seven days on which countries are affected.
“These countries will be announced in the next seven days, but it will cost people because when you look at the price of vaccines and most of them, it takes two injections to be effective. This is a significant cost to the population of 1.3 billion people across Africa.
Unfortunately, COVAX, which was primarily designed to help equitable distribution of vaccines in less wealthy countries, was entrenched and did not secure the funds to achieve this goal.
After a while it became clear that this was not coming together as they had hoped, it was at this point that the AU itself had talks with various people from the World Bank and d ‘other groups.
Eventually, the African bank Exim’s program stepped forward to guarantee up to $ 2 billion in seed funding to secure the orders. Yet the countries themselves needed to come and buy ”.
Third phase
The third phase of the vaccination process will be funded by the government of Ghana.
The total number of vaccines and their cost will depend on the benefits the country receives during the first two phases.
Although Ghana expects 2.4 million doses from the GAVI COVAX program, the Ghana Health Service says the actual number will depend on market availability.
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