During his speech on new lockdown rules on Sunday, President Cyril Ramaphosa welcomed Joe Biden’s 17 million vaccine pledge to South Africa. Below is a summary of all the key developments around Covid-19 vaccines; anything from eligible age groups, to targeted rollout dates and the US (G7) vaccine funding.
- From Thursday, July 15, those over 35 years of age will be able to register on the Electronic Vaccination Data System. Ramaphosa said plans are afoot to commence with vaccinations for the 35+ group from August 1.
- Ramaphosa said plans are afoot to commence with vaccinations for the 35+ group from August 1.
- Government and the private sector are working together to build additional capacity to vaccinate many more people a day. Currently both the 60+ and 50+ age groups are being vaccinated.
- Ramaphosa added that the pace of vaccination has more than doubled in the last month, and will continue to increase. Presently, nearly 190,000 people are on average being vaccinated each weekday.
- To date, over 4.2 million people in South Africa have received a vaccine dose since the height of the second wave, with one million of these having been done over the past seven weekdays.
- Ramaphosa welcomed the announcement by Joe Biden’s administration that the US is donating 15 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine to African countries through the COVAX facility.
- He said the government is negotiating to have the vaccine drug substance produced here in South Africa, “so that we have a fully-owned African vaccine manufactured on African soil in a number of countries on our continent”.
- The African Union, through the South African office as the AU COVID-19 champion, and the EU have reached a historic agreement that will see Aspen delivering over 17 million Johnson & Johnson vaccine doses to South Africa and other African countries over the next three months, commencing in late July.
- He also welcomed SAHPRA’s approved of CoronaVac vaccine from China for use in South Africa in the near future. Manufactured by Sinovac Life Sciences Co, and imported by Curanto Pharma, the vaccine is administered as two doses of 0,5ml, given intramuscularly, with the second dose administered between 14 and 28 days after the first dose.
