Malé, Maldives – Canadian High Commissioner to Sri Lanka and Maldives, David McKinnon has stated that Maldives would be among the countries which would receive vaccines from Canada through COVAX.
This comes as Canada has pledged to commit CAD 220 million in the new financial commitments to the Gavi COVAX AMC, Canada had stated that their pledge would help ensure vaccines reach everyone in the COVAX Advance Market Commitment (AMC), which aims to secure doses of COVID-19 vaccines for 92 low- and middle-income countries and economies at the same time as wealthier nations.
“Canada is committed to a robust global effort to stop COVID-19. That is why our government will provide an additional commitment of CAD 220M to the COVAX AMC for the procurement of doses for the 92 low and lower middle-income economies. This is a doubling of our initial contribution. We urge all countries with the means to do so to support the COVAX Facility in any way they can.”
Karina Gould, Minister of International Development, Canada and COVAX AMC Co-Chair
While both Canada and America have given commitment to provide Covid-19 vaccines to Maldives through COVAX, the type and quantity of it has not been revealed yet. Both countries have pledged to donate vaccines to Maldives while the island nation is facing a Covid-19 vaccine shortage as several purchased vaccines delivery has been delayed.
The World Health Organization (WHO) co-led facility COVAX had supplied Maldives with 12,000 doses of Covishield was supplied in the first week of March, 2021 and 5,850 doses of Pfizer vaccines on March 25 to support the country’s vaccination campaign. In addition to this, the country received 100,000 syringes to be used in the country’s nation wide vaccination program, Covid-19 Dhifaau, also under the same COVAX facility.
According to the latest statistics released by Health Protection Agency, 310,834 people had received their first dose of vaccine while 170,105 people have received their second dose of vaccine in the Maldives. The vaccine for Covid-19 was first administered in maldives on February 1 this year with the donations of India’s Oxford-Astrazeneca vaccine followed by Sinopharm donated by China.
