ghana has received the first covert 19
vaccines through
kovacs that's a who scheme designed to
help distribute doses fairly
around the world here was the arrival
600 000 doses of the oxford astrazeneca
jab
landing on this plane in the capital
accra a government delegation led by the
health minister
was there to receive them organa has a
population of 31 million
and it was chosen as the first recipient
after promising
quick distribution his vaccination drive
will start
on march the second and frontline health
workers along with the vulnerable will
be first in the queue
here's the bbc's thomas nadi in accra
the initial target is to vaccinate
20 million people out of the country's
30 million
population a number of new variants have
been identified in the country
among them the more infectious british
variant
on friday ghana's health service said
that while infections had peaked
hospitals were still recording a high
number of cases
the country has recorded over 80 000
cases of the virus
and 582 deaths since the outbreak in
march
now the doses are in west africa now
they came from the serum institute of
india which is the world's biggest
vaccine manufacturer here they are being
packed into boxes at a facility in pune
we're told other shipments from this
factory are due to arrive in other parts
of africa
very soon while the who and the un's
children's charity
unicef are hailing this moment here's a
statement from unicef saying
in the days ahead frontline workers will
begin to receive vaccines and the next
phase in the fight against this disease
can begin
the ramping up of the largest
immunization campaign
in history well the delivery is eight
months after the start of kovacs the
idea behind it
is to ensure that everyone gets vaccines
regardless of their wealth or their
country's wealth and
this is how it works kovacs pulls funds
from wealthier countries
to help buy vaccines for those countries
if they want them
but more importantly lower income
countries its goal is to deliver 2.3
billion vaccines to people in 190
countries
by the end of this year and most of
those doses will go to the lower income
countries
free of charge success of course hinges
on
funding being provided these countries
have signed up
they have a choice of paying for their
own jobs and those of countries unable
to afford them
or they can simply put money in which
will fund doses to those lower income
countries
so far over 10 billion dollars has been
committed
that seems a lot it is a lot however
it's still 800
million dollars short of this year's
target and we know that richer countries
have been able to buy
far more covered jabs than lower income
ones
here's the economist on the scale of the
problem saying the 54 wealthiest
countries are home to 18 percent of the
world's adult population
but have ordered 40 of all available
vaccines
it blames vaccine hoarding for an
unequal rollout
and there is evidence that's happening
look at this graph
canada has ordered 338 million doses
that's enough to vaccinate its
population
five times over i should say all those
doses haven't arrived yet
and the uk the eu and australia also
have orders
in place to vaccinate their populations
more than twice over
again though all those vaccines have yet
to be delivered well the who
has been vocal on this issue some
high-income countries are entering
contracts with vaccine manufacturers
that undermine
the deals that kovacs has in place
and reduce the number of doses kovacs
can buy
even if we have the funds we can only
deliver vaccines to poorer countries
if high-income countries cooperate in
respecting the deals kovacs has done
and the new deals it's doing
this is not a matter of charity it's a
matter of
epidemiology well there's been plenty of
scrutiny over this program while most
first doses
will go from the kovac scheme to low or
middle-income countries
some wealthier countries are also using
it we're told singapore has requested an
early allocation and here's an article
on the new zealand website
staff reporting that the country will
receive over well
close to quarter of a million jabs from
kovacs by the end
of july and then there's canada it's the
only member of the g7 group of rich
countries listed
as a kovacs beneficiary as you can
imagine that's taken some size surprise
criticism has been directed at the
government but here's one minister
defending its approach our top priority
is to ensure that canadians have access
to vaccines and so joining kovacs being
part of that
was part of it all along as i said from
the summer kovacs we joined as a
self-financing country
kovacs kovacs's objective is to provide
vaccines for 20
of the populations of all member states
both self-financing
and those who will receive donations and
so
um you know canada made the decision as
you know other countries have to
take on this first allocation because we
recognize how
important it is to ensure canadians have
access to vaccines
well let's consider whether canada's
defense stacks up here's bbc population
correspondent
stephanie hegerty well yeah in an ideal
world that is how kovacs was supposed to
work that a certain group would get the
vaccines for free
and another group would pay through the
scheme and those groups together
would have bargaining power that would
ensure they get vaccines
more cheaply but of course we have this
big production problem now in the first
quarter of this year is the entire world
wants to get access to these vaccines
and that's what's creating the tension
here and canada has come under a lot of
criticism but
canada is also you could argue
requesting the vaccines
that it's paid for and it's in a tricky
position because it's
vaccination program has been really slow
to start canada ordered a lot of doses
but it hasn't received most of them yet
and that's because maybe it didn't pay
enough or it didn't pay
early enough to get to the top of the
queue with manufacturers so
canada's vaccination program it's
vaccination rollout has been really slow
and it's under huge pressure to get its
fax its population vaccinated
and stephanie if that's a higher income
country let's talk about lower income
countries do they have to have certain
infrastructure in order to receive the
jabs via kovacs
well kovacs hasn't given any country
priority but what it is prioritizing is
countries that can get these vaccines
into arms fast enough
and there's been a lot of discussion
around whether low-income countries have
the infrastructure
to manage a huge vaccination campaign
like this and but
you have to remember a lot of them do
they're already running big vaccination
early childhood vaccination programs so
in a lot of cases the infrastructure is
there and the astrazeneca vaccine
delivered today
it's easy to store it requires normal
refrigeration but even in the case of
complicated vaccines like pfizer moderna
that need -70
one of the first countries in the world
to roll out a vaccine it was against
ebola
that requires that kind of freezing was
the democratic republic
republic of congo a low-income country