Ethiopia to Receive 400,000 COVID-19 Vaccine From COVAX

Addis Ababa June 15/2021 (ENA) Ethiopia will soon receive about 400,000 COVID-19 vaccines from COVAX global partnership, Ministry of Health announced.

Minister of Health, Lia Tadesse briefed journalists today about the ongoing COVID-19 vaccination in Ethiopia.

According to Lia, despite enormous efforts to prevent and control COVID-19 pandemic, it has continued to be the major public health challenges in the country.

She indicated that the second round of vaccination is facing shortages of COVAX vaccine in developing countries including Ethiopia for Serum Institute of India has decided to produce the vaccine for the demand in India only.

The government of Ethiopia is working with other international organizations to curb the shortages of this vaccine.

In this regard, activities are underway in partnership with the African Union and other international organizations by allocating additional finance to increase the second round vaccine in kind and volume.

She elaborated that process has already been started to purchase AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson vaccines.

According to her, the government of Ethiopia is also working to get additional vaccines from various donors by using embassies and consulates located in different parts of the world.  

Accordingly, some 400,000 vaccines will soon be obtained rom COVAX global partnership in a bid to provide the second round of vaccination.

"By enhancing the availability of COVID-19 vaccines in the country using various mechanisms, the second round of vaccination will be conducted soon based on the medical procedures of the World Health Organization."

The focus of second round vaccination will also focus on people most vulnerable to the pandemic, she added.

she also said that the nation has been undertaking activities to produce COVID-19 vaccine locally.

It is to be recalled that Ethiopia had received 2.2 million COVID-19 vaccines allocated by the COVAX 300,000 doses by Sinopharm.

More than 1.3 million persons have been vaccinated against the virus during the first round of the vaccination campaign.

Vaccinated persons have little chance of being infected by the virus and the severity of the disease is low even if infected, it was learned.