Addis Ababa (Ethiopia), September 7: Ethiopia on Monday received the first shipment of 108,000 Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine doses from the African Vaccine Acquisition Trust (AVAT) mechanism.
The vaccine doses were handed over to Ethiopia at the Addis Ababa Bole International Airport by the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) together with other AVAT partners as well as international financial partners such as the World Bank.
"Today's additional doses of vaccines for Ethiopia will really play a huge role in accelerating our efforts to vaccinate our population, especially the priority population that is vulnerable to this pandemic," Ethiopia's Minister of Health, Lia Tadesse, said during the event.
The Ethiopian health minister stressed that the last batch of COVID-19 vaccine doses will inject much-needed impetus into the East African country's ongoing efforts to mitigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
John Nkengasong, Director of Africa CDC, on his part, emphasized the huge significance of the AVAT platform in realizing Africa's quest to meet a minimum target of at least 60 percent of COVID-19 vaccine immunization by the end of 2022.
The COVID-19 vaccine doses delivered on Monday were said to be the first consignment of a total of about three million vaccine doses that the East African country procured under the AVAT mechanism.
"We are very happy today that we continue to increase the pool of arms that we have to fight this pandemic by increasing the vaccine spectrum that we already have," Nkengasong said.
According to the Africa CDC director, being an African initiative for Africans, the AVAT platform is a unique initiative in terms of its continental aspirations.
"These are Africans stepping up to organize themselves to take their own health security into their hands and governments are putting their own taxpayers' money on the table with support from the World Bank and the Afreximbank," he said.
The AVAT, which was established by the African Vaccine Acquisition Task Team in November 2020, is part of the African Union's COVID-19 vaccine development and access strategy. The AVAT's main partner institutions include the Africa CDC, the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) and the African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank).
Source: Xinhua
