South Africa to procure additional 20 million doses of Pfizer vaccines

Health Minister Dr Zweli Mkhize confirmed that South Africa signed a deal for the procurement of 20 million doses of Pfizer vaccines. Payment will be made in due course.

He added that the deal will be finalised within the next few days. In addition,the minister confirmed that the Johnson & Johnson (J&J) agreement was also “fully concluded”.

Vaccine administration in South Africa

Significant and rapid expansion’

According to a press release, Dr Mkhize believes that the two vaccine deals now “sets the stage for a significant and rapid expansion of the country’s COVID-19 vaccination programme”.

He confirmed that the “final tranche of 200 000 Johnson & Johnson doses for the Sisonke Protocol is expected to arrive on 10 April 2021, and explained:

“These doses will take us to the last mile of the Sisonke Protocol, which is set to become one of the most seminal studies in the history of the pandemic”.

The next step, according to the health minister, would now be for South Africa to “embark on an implementation study with a limited number of Pfizer doses used among healthcare workers”.

Implementation study

Minister Mkhize also described the implementation study as a “valuable contribution to the science of mass vaccination”, which will lead to the success of the vaccination programme:

“In preparation for the mass vaccination campaign, we have undertaken a deep study of the Sisonke Protocol to draw lessons from the programme and enhance the efficiency of future operations”.

Minister Mkhize thanked “government officials, business partners and social partners who are working around the clock to ensure that the programme is efficient, safe and exemplary”.

He explained that the department have, “upon deeper inspection and reflection”, revised the vaccination strategy to target “the most pressing public health and economic relief” which the programme should achieve.

COVID-19 in South Africa

At the time of publishing, South Africa had a confirmed caseload of 1 552 853 cases, along with 53 032 deaths while recoveries were at 1 478 820. In addition, the total number of vaccines administered now stands at 272 438.

The latest tally showed that no deaths were recorded in KwaZulu-Natal, Limpopo, Mpumalanga, the North West or the Northern Cape on 6 April.

In the Eastern Cape, 8 patient passed away, while 16 from the Free State and 9 from Gauteng passed away. South Africa how has a recovery rate of 95%. As at 6 April 2021:

Province	Total Cases in South Africa	Total Deaths	Total Recoveries	Active Cases currently
Eastern Cape	195 515	11 371	183 948	196
Free State	83 789	3 676	78 393	1 720
Gauteng	415 682	10 363	403 200	2 119
KwaZulu-Natal	334 600	10 236	318 596	5 768
Limpopo	63 276	2 241	60 748	287
Mpumalanga	75 613	1 348	73 426	839
North West	64 224	1 496	60 552	2 176
Northern Cape	36 641	825	33 009	2 807
Western Cape	283 513	11 476	266 948	5 089
Unallocated	0

Now read: Charlize Theron on the global vaccine effort and missing SA