* President says Ghana to inoculate 20 million people by
year-end
* COVAX vaccines scheme accelerates deliveries
* Nigeria, Angola, Congo receive COVAX vaccines on Tuesday
(Updates with vaccine delivery to Congo and Gambia)
By Christian Akorlie
ACCRA, March 2 (Reuters) - Ghana launched its coronavirus
vaccination drive on Tuesday with doses from the global COVAX
vaccine-sharing programme, which delivered shipments to other
African countries as its vaccine rollout to developing nations
accelerates.
The start of vaccinations in Ghana, and in neighbouring
Ivory Coast on Monday, along with 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.
On Tuesday, COVAX delivered 3.92 million doses of the
vaccine to Nigeria, 1.7 million doses to Democratic Republic of
Congo, 624,000 to Angola and 36,000 to Gambia. Senegal expects
324,000 doses from the scheme to arrive on Wednesday.
"This is a historic and momentous occasion for The Gambia,"
Health Minister Ahmadou Lamin Samateh said in a statement.
In Ghana, people lined up outside the regional hospital in
the capital, Accra, for a first phase of vaccinations which is
prioritising 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.
The West African country aims to vaccinate 20 million
people, or over 66% of its population, by the end of 2021,
according to President Nana Akufo-Addo.
Drones from U.S.-based startup Zipline delivered some of the
vaccines to health facilities, making Ghana the first in the
world to use the technology on a national scale to deliver
COVID-19 shots, the company said.
Only a handful of other African countries have started
inoculations, with doses bought bilaterally or received as
donations.
Vaccine shipments through the COVAX scheme are expected to
accelerate this week with the delivery of 11 million AstraZeneca
and Pfizer-BioNTech doses.
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
Additional reporting by Fiston Mahamba in Goma and Pap Saine in
Banjul, Writing by Nellie Peyton and Alessandra Prentice;
Editing by Bate Felix, Emelia Sithole-Matarise, Aurora Ellis and
Nick Macfie)
Astrazeneca (AZN)
