Addis Ababa, January 31, 2022 (FBC) – Additional 13 million Covid 19 vaccines is arriving in Ethiopia through COVAX from Team Europe donations, Embassy of France said.
“In total, “Team Europe” has provided around two thirds of the Covid-19 vaccines donated to Ethiopia,” the statement said, a statement by Embassy of France in Addis Ababa.
The donation is said part of the contribution to the important efforts of the Ethiopian Ministry of Health to uptake the vaccination campaign throughout the country and reach its objective of 70pct of the population vaccinated by the end of 2022.
In the last few days, Ethiopia has received more than 13 million Johnson and Johnson Covid-19 vaccines through COVAX mechanism, donated by France (6,746,400 doses), Finland (1,699,200 doses), Denmark (1, 560, 000 doses), Greece (1, 346, 400 doses), Italy (1, 264, 110 doses) and Sweden (480, 690 doses).
These new deliveries come in addition to more than 10.5 million vaccine doses already donated by EU Member States to Ethiopia through COVAX, including nearly 7.5 million doses from Germany as well as 165, 600 doses from Portugal, making it a total of almost 24 million doses received since the beginning of the pandemic.
“Team Europe”, the EU and its Member States, is actively contributing to a wider global response to the Covid-19 pandemic.
In May 2021, EU leaders have reaffirmed their commitment to speed up vaccine sharing to accelerate worldwide equitable access to safe and efficient vaccines.
“Team Europe” has, since then, further pledged to donate 700 million doses by mid-2022, a large portion of which will go to the Afiican continent.
The EU has EU is a major financial support to COVAX with more than 3 billion euros provided so far and supports the strengthening of African health systems and pharmaceutical production capacities.