Health workers in Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana are the first to be vaccinated against COVID-19 with vaccine doses shipped by the COVAX Facility.
A brass band played outside the Treichville vaccination center in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire on March 1, 2021, as health care and frontline workers filed in to become the first people in the world to receive COVID-19 vaccine doses shipped from the COVAX Facility, a multilateral initiative established to ensure equitable vaccine distribution worldwide. COVAX is led by the World Health Organization; Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations — with UNICEF coordinating procurement and supply. The week prior,600,000 COVID-19 vaccine doses were delivered to Ghana and 504,000 doses arrived in Côte d’Ivoire, marking the start of what will be the largest, fastest and most complex global vacine rollout in history.
