The latest update on the UN-led COVAX Facility, of which Ghana is a participant has disclosed that the country has been assigned to take delivery of 2.4 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine which is licensed to the Serum Institute of India (AZ/SII).
In line with the facility’s initial guidance delivered on 22 January, and building on the publication of the 2021 COVAX global and regional supply forecast, the COVAX Facility expressed their optimism to share the forecast “on early availability of doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine and the AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine to Facility participants”.
The document also contained further information on “indicative distribution of 240 million doses of the AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine, licensed to Serum Institute of India (SII) and 96 million doses of the AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine, under the advance purchase agreement between Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance and AstraZeneca – hereinafter “AZ”, for Q1 & Q2 2021”.
Ghana is among 145 counties listed to receive vaccines from a number of suppliers through the COVAX Facility according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
Total doses cover, according to COVAX Facility on average targets 3.3% of the total population of the 145 participants receiving doses from at least one manufacturer and is in line with the Facility’s target to reach at least 3% population coverage in all countries in the first half of the year, “enough to protect the most vulnerable groups such as health care workers”.
Given the limited doses, the complexities related to rolling-out a vaccine requiring ultra-cold chain, and to ensure maximum public health impact, a decision was made to limit the number of countries for first deliveries of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine in order to enable successful distribution and delivery.
“Building on the principles of fairness, transparency, and equity for this exceptional early delivery allocation process, all Facility participants expressing interest in early deliveries of Pfizer-BioNTech and assessed as ready by the six regional review committees were divided by regional bloc – as per the six WHO regions – and by their Participant status (whether Self-Financing or AMC)”.
Based on the limited quantity of doses available, COVAX’s list of participants was pared down via a WHO-led review process which evaluated participant’s readiness, whether or not the participant had already initiated vaccination; as the intent of this initial roll-out was to allow participants to introduce a vaccine.
“It was stipulated that Participants that have initiated their COVID vaccination programme as of 29 January will not be included in the first exceptional allocation round for the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine”.
Also, self-financing participants’ pricing preferences were considered by the facility. In this case, it ascertained whether doses were within the price point indicated in their Facility application.
An assessment of risk of health care worker exposure, which is the key impact that the early exceptional distribution is aiming for, was also considered.
“As there is no direct measure of that exposure, a combination of indicators/data were used as a proxy, including mortality rates over the last 28 days”.
