The first shipment of COVAX vaccines
Historic images of the first delivery of COVID-19 vaccines from the COVAX Facility to Ghana and of the operation in India and Dubai that led to this milestone.
Ghana is the first recipient of a shipment of COVAX Facility vaccines. On 24 February 2021, 600,000 doses of the AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine licensed to Serum Institute of India arrived in Accra, Ghana.
“This is a momentous occasion, as the arrival of the COVID-19 vaccines into Ghana is critical in bringing the pandemic
to an end."
UNICEF Representative in Ghana, Anne-Claire Dufay
The arrival in Accra is the first batch shipped and delivered in Africa by the COVAX Facility as part of an unprecedented effort to make 2 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccines available for delivery by the end of 2021.
Flight from Mumbai
The vaccines arrived on a flight from Mumbai, via Dubai, where a shipment of syringes from the UNICEF stockpile was waiting. The two consignments were loaded onto a new plane that transported them to Ghana.
The day before the arrival in India, on 23 February 2021, an employee arranges and packs vials of COVID-19 vaccines at the packing and dispatch department at a manufacturer in Pune, a city located in the western Indian state of Maharashtra.
The AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccines shipped to Ghana were then packed and safely transported to Ghana in refrigerated trucks and planes.
