Ethiopia and the World Bank on Friday signed a grant agreement amounting to 195 million US Dollars which will finance the fight against the COVID-19 epidemic in the horn African nation.
The agreement was signed between Ethiopia’s Finance Minister Ahmed Shide and World Bank’s country director Ousmane Dione for Ethiopia, a week after the bank’s executives approved the grant.
The finance primarily will help Ethiopia’s vaccine acquisition and their effective deployment in rural and vulnerable groups of the country.
The Finance Ministry said the fund will support various activities in Ethiopia’s COVID-19 Emergency Response Project under the COVID-19 Strategic Preparedness and Response Plan.
These activities are geared toward helping health officials’ efforts to achieve 60% COVID-19 vaccination coverage by the end of the 2023 calendar year.
To date, the country has administered over 46.5 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine.
Ethiopia is currently experiencing the fifth wave of the COVID-19 pandemic and has so far reported 482, 000 cases, 457,345 recoveries and 7, 518 fatalities.
MG/abj/APA