The President of Ghana, Nana Akufo-Addo has called on world leaders to ensure that coronavirus vaccines are made available to all parts of the world.
He made the call on Tuesday, December 14, 2021, in his address to the European Union Parliament in Strasbourg, France.
According to him, “I am a firm believer in the statement that ‘no one is safe until everyone is safe’. Let us help make vaccines available to all parts of the world, encourage our citizens to take the jab, and we would win the fight against COVID faster and together.”
Mr Akufo-Addo added that COVID-19 has posed the greatest test to humanity in the initial decades of the 21st century, in light of the ravages of the pandemic, which have affected all countries, rich or small.
He said the predictions of Africa going to be hit dramatically because of her relatively weak public health systems, with streets being littered with dead bodies, when the virus reached the continent, have not come to pass.
Mr. Akufo-Addo noted that “We were not given credit for quickly following the science as recommended, when many leaders in Europe were still fighting ideological battles, and seeking to lay blame on the source of the virus, rather than uniting to fight it.”
He indicated that “At every stage, we in Africa, have been dismayed to discover that every attempt was being made to make COVID-19 also an African disease. Thus, the narrative emerged that it was not really that Africans were not dying from the pandemic, we had to be covering up the true level of infections”.
He however expressed gratitude “for the donations of vaccines through platforms such as COVAX, which was good enough to send its first consignment, anywhere in the world, to Ghana.”
“Till date, less than ten percent (10%) of Africa has been vaccinated, in comparison to the EU, for example, which, as at August, had vaccinated seventy percent (70%) of its population. With countries on the continent still not being able to have sufficient access to vaccines in the requisite numbers, we, like the World Health Organisation, are worried that the phenomenon of hoarding vaccines will worsen even further, as countries begin to administer booster shots in response to the threat posed by the omicron variant of the virus.”
https://www.facebook.com/100044199441327/posts/458461315637179/?sfnsn=mo