Côte d’Ivoire has become the second country to take delivery of COVID-19 vaccines through the COVAX initiative.

Reuters reports that the consignment on Friday of 500 000 doses of the AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine to Abidjan follows the delivery of the first batch to Ghana last Wednesday.

The COVAX vaccine-sharing facility, which was established to ensure fairer global distribution of the vaccines, aims to deliver 2 billion doses to 92 low-to-middle-income countries by the end of the year, providing coverage to about 20% of their populations.

The COVAX Facility Advance Market Commitment (AMC) financing mechanism gives qualifying countries access to donor-funded vaccines that are safe and effective. While many nations will receive the COVAX vaccines for free, they will have to pay for distribution and community-outreach programmes.

COVAX is co-led by the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), the GAVI vaccine alliance and the WHO, while Unicef is a key delivery partner.

2 March 2021
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