{"id":14116,"date":"2021-02-26T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-02-26T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/current_affairs\/uncategorized\/26-02-2021\/covax-initiative-2\/"},"modified":"2025-07-25T17:33:12","modified_gmt":"2025-07-25T12:03:12","slug":"covax-initiative-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/current-affairs\/26-02-2021\/covax-initiative-2","title":{"rendered":"COVAX Initiative"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>In News<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Recently, <strong>Ghana<\/strong> has become the <strong>first country in the world<\/strong> to receive vaccines acquired through the <strong>United Nations<\/strong> (UN) <strong>backed COVAX initiative<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>It has received a delivery of <strong>6,00,000 doses of the Covishield<\/strong> (AstraZeneca vaccine) made by the <strong>Serum Institute of India<\/strong> (SII).<\/li>\n<li>The vaccines have been delivered by the <strong>United Nations International Children&#8217;s Emergency Fund<\/strong> (UNICEF) and are part of the <strong>first wave of Covid-19 vaccines<\/strong> that COVAX is sending to<strong> low- and middle-income countries<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>Ghana is <strong>among 92 countries<\/strong> that have<strong> signed onto the COVAX Initiative<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>About COVAX Initiative<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>It is co-led by the <strong>Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations<\/strong> (CEPI), the <strong>Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation<\/strong> (GAVI) and the <strong>World Health Organisation<\/strong> (WHO).<\/li>\n<li><strong>Aim:<\/strong> To accelerate the development and manufacture of Covid-19 vaccines and to guarantee fair and equitable access for every country in the world.<\/li>\n<li>COVAX is the <strong>vaccines pillar of the Access to Covid-19 Tools<\/strong> (ACT) <strong>Accelerator<\/strong>.\n<ul>\n<li>The ACT Accelerator is a<strong> global collaboration<\/strong> to accelerate the development, production, and equitable access to Covid-19 tests, treatments, and vaccines.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Features<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>Doses for at least 20% of countries&#8217; populations.<\/li>\n<li>Diverse and actively managed portfolio of vaccines.<\/li>\n<li>Vaccines delivered as soon as they are available.<\/li>\n<li>End the acute phase of the pandemic.<\/li>\n<li>Rebuild economies.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Significance<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>It will <strong>reduce the loss of life<\/strong> and <strong>help to get the pandemic under control<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>Introduction of a vaccine will <strong>prevent the loss of USD 375 billion<\/strong> to the global economy <strong>every month<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Global equitable access to a vaccine<\/strong>, mainly protecting health care workers and those most-at-risk is the only way to <strong>mitigate the public health and economic impacts<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cfstatic.nextias.com\/cdn-cgi\/image\/format=auto\/file_library\/mix_content\/306058026505106940_image.png\" style=\"height:401px; width:612px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<table border=\"1\" cellspacing=\"0\" style=\"width:735px\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td style=\"vertical-align:top; width:468.0pt\">\n<p><strong>Status of Vaccines in India<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cfstatic.nextias.com\/cdn-cgi\/image\/format=auto\/file_library\/mix_content\/103807654049550320_image.png\" style=\"height:144px; width:610px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>Serum Institute of India<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>It is India&#8217;s number one <strong>biotechnology company<\/strong>,<strong> manufacturing highly specialized life saving biologicals<\/strong> like vaccines using cutting edge genetic and cell based technologies, antisera and other medical specialties.<\/li>\n<li>It was founded in <strong>1966<\/strong> and is located in the city of <strong>Pune, India<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Aim:<\/strong> Manufacture life-saving immuno-biologicals, which were in shortage in India and imported at high prices.<\/li>\n<li>It is the <strong>world&#8217;s largest vaccine manufacturer by number of doses produced and sold globally<\/strong> (more than 1.5 billion doses).\n<ul>\n<li>Vaccines include Polio vaccine as well as Diphtheria, Tetanus, Pertussis, Hib, BCG, r-Hepatitis B, Measles, Mumps and Rubella vaccines.<\/li>\n<li>It is estimated that about 65% of the children in the world receive at least one vaccine manufactured by SII.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Vaccines <\/strong>manufactured by it are<strong> accredited by the WHO <\/strong>and are being <strong>used in around 170 countries<\/strong> across the globe in their national immunisation programmes.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thehindu.com\/news\/international\/ghana-is-first-nation-in-world-to-receive-covax-vaccines\/article33924098.ece\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Source: TH<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In News Recently, Ghana has become the first country in the world to receive vaccines acquired through the United Nations (UN) backed COVAX initiative. It has received a delivery of 6,00,000 doses of the Covishield (AstraZeneca vaccine) made by the Serum Institute of India (SII). The vaccines have been delivered by the United Nations International [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14117,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14116","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-current-affairs"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/wp-images.nextias.com\/cdn-cgi\/image\/format=auto\/ca\/uploads\/2023\/07\/2705598current-affairs (1).jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14116","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14116"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14116\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49250,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14116\/revisions\/49250"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14117"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}