Ivory Coast has received over 500,000 doses of the Oxford-Astrazeneca COVID-19 vaccine through the COVID-19 Vaccines Global Assess Facility (COVAX).

The delivery of the COVAX vaccines makes the country the second country in Africa to benefit from the facility.

Ghana on Wednesday, being the first country to benefit from the programme, got the delivery of 600,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccines.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) regional Director for Africa, Matshidiso Moeti, affirmed in a tweet on Friday that “Cote d’Ivoire is the second country in Africa to receive COVID-19 vaccines from the COVAX facility.

“504,000 doses of Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine just arrived in Abidjan. Another step towards #VaccinEquity & a symbol of global cooperation & solidarity.”

Moeti added that the vaccines will be rolled out to frontline health workers in the coming days.

“Over half a million vaccines just arrived in Abidjan & will be rolled out with frontline health workers in the coming days,” she said.

One year after Africa recorded its first case of the infection, over 3.9 million cases have been reported and the death toll surpassed 100,000 last week.

Ivory Coast, with a population of about 26 million, has recorded over 32,000 COVID-19 cases and 188 deaths, data from worldometers shows.

Nigeria is also expecting to receive 16 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccines with the first four million expected soon.

Nigeria’s Health Minister, Osagie Ehanire, had said the country does not know when the vaccines will be delivered to the country.  

 “Now, the COVAX will start delivering to African countries before the end of February, that’s what they told us. But they didn’t tell us which country is first or which is second, which is third,” Mr Ehanire said at the Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting on Wednesday.