Nigeria, 8 Other African Countries Receive COVID-19 Vaccine From MTN
Nigeria and eight other African countries have taken delivery of the first set of the Covid-19 vaccine doses donated by telecoms giant, the MTN Group.
This follows the receipt of the first 723,000 out of the 7 million Covid-19 vaccine doses given by the South African firm, MTN to Ghana, Gambia, Liberia, Guinea Bissau, Sierra Leone, Nigeria, Senegal, Mauritius and Togo.
This disclosure was made by the Director, Africa Centre for Disease Control (CDC), the African Union’s disease control body, John Nkengasong, at a news conference.
He also stated that several other countries, including South Sudan and Malawi, are due to receive doses in the coming days.
This is also coming after several African countries had rolled out and started vaccinating its citizens with vaccine doses provided by the WHO backed COVAX initiative.
It would be recalled that MTN Group announced a donation of $25 million to support the African Union’s vaccination programme.
MTN said the donation which is to help secure 7 million doses of the Covid-19 vaccine is for health workers across the African Union’s 55 member states.
African countries have begun vaccinating their citizens only in recent weeks after richer countries secured early supplies.
Africa is relying primarily on free doses from the World Health Organization-backed COVAX vaccine-sharing facility, which aims to secure 2 billion vaccine doses by the end of 2021.
