South Africa vaccinates over 230,000 health workers

South Africa has so far vaccinated 231,605 healthcare workers out of the initial target of 1.5 million carers needing the jab meant as a first step to protect the country’s 50 million-plus people against the coronavirus pandemic, Health Minister Zweli Mkhize said.

The country, which has lost 52,648 people to the disease, has 1,544,466 confirmed COVID-19 cases since the virus was first reported in March 2020, the minister said.

The latest 46 people to succumb to COVID-19 related illnesses died in Gauteng Province (16), KwaZulu-Natal (14), Western Cape (8), Free State (7) and in the Eastern Cape (1) on Sunday, Mkhize said.

The government started its vaccination programme in February, with President Cyril Ramaphosa and cabinet ministers getting vaccinated in a Cape Town township before rolling it out to the country’s healthcare workers nationwide.

The vaccination programme has now been extended to 54 sites across the country, with the single-dose Johnson & Johnson jab being the vaccine of choice for the country after it suspended the use of its one million doses of the widely used double dose India-made AstraZeneca, the minister said.

Explaining the decision to dump the Astra-Zeneca vaccine, the South Africans said the drug did not have the efficacy needed to overcome the rapidly and easily transmissible mutant variant blamed for the second wave in country.

Pretoria has since sold the AstraZeneca vaccine to the African Union, which, in turn, is redistributing the batch to 14 other African countries, according to Mkhize.

Suzan O /APA