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Ghana has granted emergency authorisation for the use of the Russian Sputnik V vaccine against COVID-19.
Russia’s RDIF sovereign wealth fund made the confirmation on Saturday about Ghana’s approval.
The Russian vaccine was approved by Ghana’s health ministry, the Russian Direct Investment Fund said in a statement.
Ghana thus becomes the 31st country to approve the Russian vaccine for use and would be the fifth African country to do so.
The West African nation is yet to start vaccinating its citizens against the coronavirus as deaths from the virus continue to increase.
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Ghana has so far recorded more than 75,000 of the virus and more than 500 deaths.
The country’s president has promised that vaccines for vaccination will be available by the end of March, 2021.
Some African countries including Zimbabwe and South Africa have already started vaccinating their citizens against the Covid-19.
Some of these countries are accessing their vaccines from China and the United States as well as the UK.
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Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame has accused the West of hoarding Covid-19 vaccines and “purchasing many times more doses than they need.”
In an opinion article published on the news website The Guardian, the outspoken African leader “the current situation with regard to the access and distribution of Covid-19 vaccines vividly illustrates the decades-old contradictions of the world order.”
“Rich and powerful nations have rushed to lock up supply of multiple vaccine candidates,” Kagame said adding that “leaves African and other developing countries either far behind in the vaccine queue, or not in it at all.”
President Kagame also writes that “there are worrying signs of vaccine nationalism in Europe and North America.
The pressures on political leaders to vaccinate all their citizens before sharing supplies with others is understandable. But forcing smaller or poorer countries to wait until everyone in the north has been catered for is shortsighted.”
Source: Africafeeds.com
