Ghana President Akufo-Addo receives world’s first free Covax jab

Ghana’s President Nana Akufo-Addo on Monday turned out to be the world’s first beneficiary of a Covid vaccine from Covax, a worldwide scheme to acquire and disseminate vaccinations for free for poorer nations.

More affluent nations have soared ahead with vaccinating their people. However, numerous less fortunate nations are as yet expecting their first inoculation dosages.

President Akufo-Addo stated, “It is important that I set the example that this vaccine is safe by being the first to have it, so that everybody in Ghana can feel comfortable about taking this vaccine,” before receiving a shot of Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine in a live broadcast.

The first lady, Rebecca Akufo-Addo additionally got a shot, one day before the rest of the 600,000 doses are distributed across the nation.

Ghana’s food and drug authority a month ago approved the Indian-made vaccine and Russia’s Sputnik V, as the government objective is to target 20 of its 30 million people by the end of the year.

Last Wednesday, Ghana was the first nation to obtain vaccines from Covax, led by Gavi the Vaccine Alliance, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI).

A few of 145 participating economies are set to obtain 337.2 million doses by mid-year which is enough to inoculate a little more than three percent of their consolidated people.

Covax stated that it hopes to raise the figure to up to 27 percent in low-income nations by the end of December.

Ghana has documented 84,023 Covid-19 cases and 607 deaths since the beginning of the pandemic, though the exact figure is believed to be higher due to lack of testing.

Schools resumed in January after a 10-month shut down, however big social gatherings are forbidden and land and sea borders have stayed shut since March 2020.

In spite of the inoculation rollout, the President declared that all the current restrictions to control the spread of the virus were to continue to apply.