First COVID-19 vaccine doses dispatched by COVAX arrive in Ghana

First COVID-19 vaccine doses dispatched by COVAX arrive in Ghana

The World Health Organization's global vaccine-sharing scheme COVAX delivered its first COVID-19 shots on Wednesday, as the race to get doses to the world's poorest people and tame the pandemic accelerates.

A flight carrying 600,000 doses of the AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine produced by the Serum Institute of India landed in Ghana's capital Accra, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations children's agency UNICEF said in a joint statement.

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, according to Ghanaian health officials.

"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