South Africa’s first vaccines will arrive in the country on 1 February, signalling the start of an inoculation programme that has been criticised for its tardiness.
The first million of 1.5 million doses of the shot developed by AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford and produced by the Serum Institute of India have been cleared by South African regulators for use, health minister Zweli Mkhize said at a press conference on Wednesday. They will be ready for distribution 10 to 14 days later, he said. The campaign will prioritise 1.25 million health workers.
The announcement comes amid widespread criticism of the government’s failure to sign bilateral agreements with drug makers in 2020. The government clinched the deal with Serum this month and is pursuing other talks as the World Health Organisation-backed Covax programme will only supply enough vaccines for 10% of South Africa’s 60 million people this year.
“As a country, for us to expect our first consignment of vaccines less than a year after the first case of Covid-19 was recorded is a massive achievement of unprecedented proportions,” Mkhize said.
Pfizer and BioNTech have also applied for registration of their vaccines in South Africa, according to a presentation by the health products regulator at the same press conference. Johnson & Johnson has submitted data under a so-called rolling review to accelerate approval when its trials are complete.
Health ministry and government department officials gave details of how the vaccines will be distributed and paid for at the press conference.
South Africa has the most confirmed cases on the continent and a new, more transmittable variant of the virus has caused a sharp rise in infections in recent weeks. At least 57 countries worldwide have started inoculation campaigns. — Reported by Antony Sguazzin and Pauline Bax, (c) 2021 Bloomberg LP