Rwanda received the first shipment of Covid-19 vaccines through the COVAX initiative on Wednesday.
Launched in April 2020 by the World Health Organisation (WHO), COVAX brings together governments, global health organisation, manufacturers, scientists, private sector, civil society and philanthropy, with the aim of providing innovative and equitable access to COVID-19 diagnostics, treatments and vaccines.
Rwanda’s health ministry confirmed that the first batch of 240,000 doses of the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine arrived in Kigali yesterday morning.
A second shipment of 102,960 doses of the Pfizer vaccine, also from the COVAX facility is expected to arrive soon.
“With each recipient receiving two doses for full protection, the AstraZeneca-Oxford and Pfizer vaccines will be used to vaccinate a total of 171,480 people identified as priority risk groups, including health personnel, those above 65 years old or with underlying health conditions, and other frontline workers,” the health officials noted.
The minister of health, Dr Daniel Ngamiji said that the country will roll out their vaccination plan, which will see target risk groups across Rwanda receive their first of two vaccine doses.
“Our target is to vaccinate 30% of our population by the end of 2021, and 60% by the end of 2022,” he added.
