(5 Jul 2021) With megaphones in hand, health workers in Abidjan visited popular markets in the city calling for people to get vaccinated against COVID-19.
Traders and customers at the market in Treichville, a neighbourhood in the financial capital of the country, gathered to register and receive their jabs from a mobile health unit parked outside.
"I am really relieved, because I have been wanting to do it (get vaccinated) for a long time," said Amsatouu Diallo, who had been shopping at the market.
With some African countries facing a third wave of COVID-19 worsened by the delta variant, Ivory Coast has tried to accelerate its vaccination rollout.
Over the next 15 days, authorities will continue the campaign in more than 130 markets in Abidjan, in order to reach those who were not able to go elsewhere for the jab.
"I would like it to continue, I would like it to become routine, we would like everyone to have access to the vaccination," said Luicie Kpan Toure, a health worker in one of the mobile vaccination units.
The African continent of 1.3 billion people is now in the grip of a third surge of infections that is "extremely aggressive," the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said last week.
Health officials have described overflowing COVID-19 wards, dangerous oxygen shortages, and the growing spread of the virus to extremely vulnerable and unequipped rural areas.
The World Health Organization said COVID-19 case numbers are doubling in Africa every three weeks.
In Ivory Coast 48,564 people have been infected and at least 315 have died during the pandemic, according to the Johns Hopkins University.
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