Denmark, Iceland, Norway, Germany provide 530,000 doses of Covid-19 vaccines to Ghana

• Posted on October 6, 2021October 6, 2021
• by Nana Kwesi Coomson
• Comment

Denmark, Iceland, Norway and Germany have provided 530,000 doses of Covid-19 vaccines to Ghana.

The 530,000 doses of AstraZeneca’s Covishield vaccine from the four governments of Denmark, Iceland, Norway and Germany will arrive in Accra via the COVAX facility on Wednesday, October 6, 2021.

With this donation, the four governments jointly will be supporting Ghana’s vaccination effort to reach 20 million adult citizens by the end of 2021.

Germany alone has so far provided Ghana with approximately 1.9 million doses of vaccines, which are currently being rolled out or are under preparation for the nationwide rollout.

A press statement dated October 5, 2021, issued by the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany in Accra said “Germany’s share of the upcoming delivery is 386,400 doses, bringing the number vaccines Germany has made available to Ghana to almost 2.3 million.”

Complementary to the vaccines Germany has provided equipment like a full Intensive Care Unit for the Effia Nkwanta Hospital in Takoradi, 45 ventilators and 5,000 pulse oximeters for several hospitals in Ghana, support to the laboratories at the Kumasi Centre for Collaborative Research (KCCR) and the Noguchi Memorial Institute, as well as personal protective equipment including 470,000 face masks and nutritious meals for frontline healthcare workers, amongst others.

In total, Germany’s bilateral support to Ghana amounts to a value of more than 25 million Euros (without vaccines).

Currently the German Epidemic Preparedness Team (SEEG) is providing theoretical and practical trainings in next-generation sequencing of viruses as well as bioinformatics analyses at the Kumasi Centre for Collaborative Research (KCCR) to enable the Ghanaian authorities to identify potential new Corona virus variants of concern.

The bilateral assistance to Ghana complements Germany’s contribution to the Access to Covid-19 Tools–Accelerator (ACT-A) distribution platform, of which Germany is the second-largest donor, providing 2.2 billion Euros. COVAX is part of ACT-A.

In addition to its financial contribution to COVAX Germany will pass on 100 million doses, primarily to countries in transition and developing countries, 90 percent of which will be distributed through the COVAX vaccine platform.

COVAX is helping to vaccinate people worldwide – the only way to prevent the risk of constant new mutations of the virus. Nobody is safe until everybody is safe.

The press statement dated October 5, 2021, issued by the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany in Accra said the shipment will arrive on board KLM flight KL 589 on October 6th, 2021, at 07.55 pm at Accra’s Kotoka International Airport.

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