South Africa To Commence Covid-19 Vaccinations in February

South Africa’s health minister on Sunday announced that after been hit hard by a second wave of coronavirus cases, the country hopes to obtain its first vaccine doses next month.

Recently, the South African Government has come in for criticism, particularly from health experts, over the delay in starting a program of inoculation against Covid-19.

Dr Zweli Mkhize told a news conference that the country is targeting February, while cautioning that before that can happen, negotiations must be concluded with vaccine makers including Pfizer, Moderna and AstraZeneca, as well as with Russian and Chinese laboratories.

The administration plans to seek help from the private sector as well as from the country’s main health health insurers to finance its vaccine program.

South Africa is also participating in Covax, the World Health Organisation’s Mechanism for global vaccine distribution.

Last week, the government paid a deposit of 15.8 million euros to enter Covax, the mechanism for the equitable distribution of vaccines established by the UN World Health Organization.

But the country, so far the worst-hit country in Africa, does not expect to receive the first vaccine doses under that program until the second quarter of the year.

According to the minister; ”It is clear that the second wave that we are going through is affecting us to levels which are even higher than in the earlier stage.

”The only way to deal with the Covid-19 not only in South Africa but throughout the world is the provision of the immunity through the vaccination”.

The country’s initial main goal is to vaccinate 67 percent of its population of 59 million people, in order to achieve sufficient collective immunity to stop the spread of the virus.

As at Thursday, South Africa has registered a record 18,000 new cases in 24 hours.