Sierra Leone, a smallish coastal nation of 7 million in the West African tropics interlaced by savannah and forest and grassland, was well on its recovery path from a hard bout with Ebola from 2014-2016 when the Covid-19 pandemic arrived.
Medical care in the country is still hard to access in large parts of the country. While Sierra Leone was one of the first western African nations to receive COVID-19 vaccines—beginning its vaccine rollout in March 2021—by March 2022, Sierra Leone had only 14 percent of its population vaccinated.
That was up from five percent two months previous. On the strength (12 mass vaccination campaigns in 2022 and three in 2021) and strenuous efforts to reach remote parts and populations of the country, a year on—as of March 2023—Sierra Leone had administered 7.8 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines.
37.9% of Sierra Leone’s total population has now been vaccinated against COVID-19 and in December 2022 Sierra Leone reached the target of vaccinating 70% of their adult population.