Ghana will procure 17.6 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines by the end of June with the first doses slated to arrive in March, President Nana Akufo-Addo announced on Sunday.

The West African nation is battling a second wave of the coronavirus that has swept through the continent and mutated. Ghana’s daily infection rate is rising and is close to record levels, according to data from the Ministry of Health.

So far the country has recorded 63,000 cases and 416 deaths.

“Our aim is to vaccinate the entire population, with an initial target of twenty million people,” Akufo-Addo said in a speech to the West African nation of roughly 30 million people.

He did not say which type of vaccines his government planned to acquire.

While in the beginning, the pandemic did not hit Africa hard as projected by experts, since the turn of 2021, mortality rates in the continent have surpassed the global average. The need for vaccines has become more apparent as most countries battle a second and third wave of the virus.

The Africa Center for Disease Control (Africa CDC) has secured 400 million more doses of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccines, as the body aims to immunize 60% of the continent’s population over three years.

Aside from the Africa CDC’s efforts to garner 670 million vaccine doses, the continent will also receive 600 million vaccine doses this year through the COVAX facility co-led by the World Health Organization (WHO).

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