The United States on Wednesday began shipping an additional 1.3 million doses of Pfizer-BioNtech vaccine to Ghana, bringing the total donation to the West African nation to 2.5 million doses, an official said.
The additional vaccine donation to Ghana, which comes with no strings attached, will be executed through the COVAX facility, the global mechanism set up by the World Health Organization (WHO) to provide access to vaccines to low and lower middle-income countries, many in Sub-Saharan Africa.
With the latest donation of 1,330,290 doses of Pfizer-BioNtech vaccine, the United States has now donated a total of 2,559,910 vaccine doses to Ghana, fulfilling a pledge President Joseph R. Biden Jr. has repeated several times this year that America will be “the arsenal of vaccines in our fight against COVID-19,” and that the United States is “proud to be able to deliver these safe and effective vaccines to the people of Ghana.”
President Biden has asserted that the United States is sharing vaccine doses with the world not to secure favors or extract concessions but to save lives.
“We’re leading the world in a global vaccine strategy because it’s the right thing to do. It’s the right thing morally, the right thing from a global public health perspective, and right for our collective security and well-being. It’s also why the US continues to lead on bolstering manufacturing abroad, and supports an intellectual property waiver,” the American leader said in recent remarks.
At the moment, the United States is leading the world in global COVID-19 vaccine donations, including in Africa.
In addition to the $2 billion donated to COVAX, the U.S. government has purchased 1 billion Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines to distribute them through the year to low and lower middle-income countries as defined by the Gavi’s COVAX Advanced Market Commitment, while the G7 has also committed an additional 500 million doses for the world.
The White House has noted that the US announcement represents the largest-ever purchase and donation of vaccines by a single country and a commitment by the American people to help protect people around the world from COVID-19.
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Simon Ateba is Chief White House Correspondent for Today News Africa. Simon covers President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, the U.S. government, the United Nations, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and other financial and international institutions in Washington D.C. and New York City.