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* President says Ghana to inoculate 20 million people by
year-end
* COVAX vaccines scheme accelerates deliveries
* Nigeria, Angola, Congo receive COVAX vaccines on Tuesday
(Adds detail on rollout, drone delivery)
By Christian Akorlie
ACCRA, March 2 (Reuters) - Ghana launched its coronavirus
vaccination drive on Tuesday after receiving 600,000 AstraZeneca
doses from the global COVAX vaccine-sharing scheme aimed
at helping developing nations combat the pandemic.
The start of vaccinations in Ghana, and in neighbouring
Ivory Coast on Monday, and the expected delivery of millions of
vaccines from the COVAX programme this week will enable more
poor countries to start inoculating mostly frontline workers and
the most vulnerable, months after wealthier countries began.
COVAX is the programme backed by the World Health
Organization and GAVI vaccine alliance to provide vaccines for
poor and middle-income countries. It said on Tuesday it aims to
deliver 237 million doses of AstraZeneca's shot to 142 countries
by the end of May as it steps up the global rollout.
On Tuesday, Nigeria took delivery of 3.92 million doses of
the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine, while Angola received 624,000.
Democratic Republic of Congo is readying for a COVAX delivery
later on Tuesday and Senegal expects 324,000 doses from the
scheme on Wednesday.
Ghanaian President Nana Akufo-Addo said the West African
country aimed to vaccinate 20 million people, or over 66% of its
population, by the end of 2021.
People lined up outside the regional hospital in the
capital, Accra, for a first phase of vaccinations which will
prioritise frontline health workers and others at high risk.
"I feel so good about taking the vaccine. It will protect me
from contracting the virus from patients," said Bernice
Anaglatey, 42, who works in the COVID-19 intensive care unit at
Accra's Ridge Hospital as she queued for her shot.
Drones from U.S.-based startup Zipline delivered some of the
vaccines to Ghanaian health facilities, making the country the
first in the world to use the technology on a national scale to
deliver COVID-19 shots, the company said.
Ghana was also the first country to receive the vaccines
under COVAX, which aims to distribute more than 1.3 billion
vaccine doses to over 90 low- and middle-income countries by the
end of the year, covering up to 20% of their populations.
Only a handful of other African countries have started
inoculations, with doses bought bilaterally or received as
donations.
Vaccine deliveries through the COVAX scheme are expected to
accelerate this week with 11 million doses of AstraZeneca and
Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines.
Health authorities are also stepping up efforts to fight
conspiracy theories around the vaccines. President Akufo-Addo
and his wife were inoculated on Monday in an effort to boost
public confidence in the vaccines. nL5N2KY0W2]
"The stories I heard about the vaccine have put fear in me,"
said Isaac Armah, a 28-year-old trader in Accra. "I'll wait for
about two months to see the effects of the vaccine on the early
recipients, then I'll make up my mind."
Coronavirus infections in Ghana have surpassed 84,000 and
more than 600 people have died, according to health ministry
data.
(Reporting by Christian Akorlie, Writing by Nellie Peyton and
Alessandra Prentice;
Editing by Bate Felix, Emelia Sithole-Matarise and Nick Macfie)
