MTN's US$25-million donation to support the African Union's (AU's) COVID-19 vaccination programme is on track to administer 165,000 AstraZeneca doses to health workers.

The vaccines arrived in the country two days ago and were received at the Kotoka International Airport by Dr Mathew Kyeremeh, Chairman of the Health Commodities Group for COVID-19 of the Ministry of Health.

A statement issued in Accra by Mr Samuel Koranteng, the Corporate Services Executive of MTN, said Dr Kyeremeh expressed his gratitude to MTN and said the vaccines were going to be administered to people with underlying conditions and frontline workers.

It said in a major commitment to the health of the continent, MTN committed in January 2021 to accelerate the AU's critical programme.

This was aimed at securing up to seven million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine overall to be spread across all 55 AU Member States for healthcare workers.

"While the facilitation of the vaccination programme is in the hands of the Africa CDC and the African Union Vaccination Acquisition Task Team, MTN is encouraged to see a clear plan and strong, accelerated move towards keeping Africa and its people safe and healthy. This is part of our ongoing commitment to ensure that Ghana and Africa as a whole, is not left behind," Mr Selorm Adadevoh, CEO of MTN Ghana has said.

"As a company that is committed to the prosperity and progress of Ghana and indeed the continent, for MTN's part, we are proud to be able to make a humble contribution to the millions of vaccine doses needed to reach herd immunity," he Adadevoh added.

He called on large corporates across industry sectors, to play their part by contributing to this and similar initiatives that can fast-track the rollout of much-needed vaccines to help get the virus under control.

Mr Kwaku Agyeman-Manu, Minister of Health said government was excited and grateful to be receiving this share of the first one million doses as part of the AU's accelerated vaccine programme, supported by MTN.

He said while they were still in the early stages of the vaccine race, this initial contribution offers some very welcome relief as we start seeing the programme coming to fruition to the benefit of their dedicated healthcare workers.

Following the outbreak of Coronavirus in Ghana, the MTN Ghana Foundation has supported Ghanaians with some major interventions to lessen the impact of the pandemic.

MTN donated GHc5 million worth of PPE to the National COVID-19 Trust Fund and also the Foundation donated essential equipment to the Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research to enable rapid testing and data processing.

The Foundation again donated over 80,000 face masks to 30 hospitals across the country and with the surge in COVID-19 cases in 2021, the Foundation recently donated PPE to 15 Senior High Schools and 29 Hospitals. As of the end of December 2020, the cumulative value of MTN Ghana's efforts to fighting COVID-19 was GH¢139 million.