Côte d’Ivoire: With Covid-19Vaccine Deliveries to Accra and Abidjan, the Race for Equity Begins

Will the rollout of vaccines to African countries be a turning point in the pandemic?

On February 24, 600,000 doses of Covid-19 vaccine arrived in Accra, Ghana. Two days later, another 504,000 doses arrived in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire. These were the first international deliveries of Covid-19 vaccine through the COVAX facility and, with the first doses administered just days later, the first steps in the largest immunisation campaign in history. Hopefully, these milestones represent a turning point in the world's response to the pandemic.

A wide-ranging coalition of international public health organisations and other partners, COVAX aims to ensure that every nation, regardless of resources, gets the vaccines needed to protect its people from this devastating virus. A large part of the developing world, including most of Africa, has too often been forced to wait for lifesaving innovations and treatments. Because of this chronic lack of equitable access, disease and poverty linger. COVAX was created at the start of the pandemic to mitigate these inequities. It plans to deliver two billion doses all over the world in 2021, including 1.3 billion to low- and middle-income countries.

This ambitious campaign is especially crucial given the deep disparities that have marked Covid-19...

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https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2021-03-04-with-covid-vaccine-deliveries-to-accra-and-abidjan-the-race-for-equity-begins/