{"id":416233,"date":"2020-07-14T21:39:02","date_gmt":"2020-07-14T19:39:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=416233"},"modified":"2020-07-14T21:42:15","modified_gmt":"2020-07-14T19:42:15","slug":"298292-confirmed-coronavirus-cases-in-south-africa-as-deaths-climb-to-4346","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/trending\/416233\/298292-confirmed-coronavirus-cases-in-south-africa-as-deaths-climb-to-4346\/","title":{"rendered":"298,292 confirmed coronavirus cases in South Africa as deaths climb to 4,346"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Health minister Dr Zweli Mkhize has announced that there are now 298,292 total cases of coronavirus in South Africa.<\/p>\n<p>This is an increase of\u00a0 10,496 cases from the 287,796 cases reported on Monday, when Guateng, the country&#8217;s epicentre, surged past 100,000 infections.<\/p>\n<p>The minister announced 174 new Covid-19 related deaths &#8211; a new daily high, taking the total to <span class=\"css-901oao css-16my406 r-1qd0xha r-ad9z0x r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0\">4,346<\/span> casualties, while he pointed to <span class=\"css-901oao css-16my406 r-1qd0xha r-ad9z0x r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0\">146,279<\/span> recoveries to date.<\/p>\n<p>A total of 2.23 million tests have been conducted, with 38,114 tests conducted over the past 24 hours, Dr Mkhize said.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">As of today, the total number of confirmed <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/COVID19?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#COVID19<\/a> cases is 298 292, the total number of deaths is 4 346 and the total number of recoveries is 146 279. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/MMqXEMv95R\">pic.twitter.com\/MMqXEMv95R<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Dr Zweli Mkhize (@DrZweliMkhize) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/DrZweliMkhize\/status\/1283117100136095745?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">July 14, 2020<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Since 31 December 2019 and as of 14 July 2020, more than 13.27 million cases of Covid-19 have been reported, including approximately 576,000 deaths, and around 7.75 million recoveries.<\/p>\n<p>Medicago Inc has been using plants to develop potential vaccines for more than two decades.<\/p>\n<p>A new partnership with GlaxoSmithKline Plc putting its unproven technology to the test against the novel coronavirus is pushing the Canadian biotech into the limelight, Bloomberg reported.<\/p>\n<p>The Quebec City-based company dosed the first humans with its experimental Covid-19 vaccine on Monday, making it one of 23 candidates that have reached phase 1 clinical trials in the race to curb the pandemic, according to the World Health Organisation.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Vaccine<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Dr Mkhize says that he is aware of ongoing developments of a new Covid-19 vaccine in Russia, but has warned that vaccine trials undergo several steps of development before they are given the green light.<\/p>\n<p>Russsian researchers announced this weekend that they might be the first in the world to develop a Coronavirus vaccine, as they have completed tests on volunteers.<\/p>\n<p>Russia\u2019s Vektor State Research Center for Virology and Biotechnologies said it has successfully completed pre-clinical trials of an anti-coronavirus vaccine, Anna Popova, chief of the Russian sanitary watchdog, said on Friday.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cColleagues have finished pre-clinical trials. They were successful. Actually, we have practically all the grounds to be sure that things will go as we promised, i.e. we plan to begin clinical trials on July 15,\u201d Popova said in an interview.<\/p>\n<p>However, Mkhize said that there were a number of steps that will need to be followed \u2013 even if the vaccine is successful.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou have to do work at the laboratories, do the research, move to animal studies and when it passes that, you have to move to a human trial,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe same trial is going on in the US, UK, Brazil and other countries. We\u2019re not yet at a point where we\u2019ve got a ready vaccine. It is good news, yes, but it is work in progress. It is still early days.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe haven\u2019t come to a point where we can just go to Russia and source a vaccine for South Africans.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>When will South Africa get a vaccine?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Africa could have a Covid-19 vaccine in the first quarter of 2021 if human trials underway in South Africa succeed, said Shabir Madhi, professor of vaccinology at University of Witwatersrand who is leading the local trial.<\/p>\n<p>Madhi said that the ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 experimental vaccine is one of 19 being tested on humans globally.<\/p>\n<p>The vaccine is also being tested in Brazil by Oxford University scientists.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cA vaccine could be made commercial as early as the beginning of next year,\u201d said Madhi.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut it is completely dependent on the results of clinical trials,\u201d he said, cautioning that out of the 19 potential vaccines being tested, the most positive outcome would be if just two succeed.<\/p>\n<p>Madhi said that trials will depend on 2,000 volunteers aged 18-65 years who will be monitored for 12 months after vaccination to assess its efficacy.<\/p>\n<p>He added that early results could be seen by November or December.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe timing of an efficacy read-out depends on when we have approximately 42 Covid-19 cases at least one month after vaccination,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Read: <a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/trending\/416213\/russian-covid-19-vaccine-is-good-news-but-its-still-early-days-mkhize\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Russian Covid-19 vaccine is good news \u2013 but it\u2019s still early days: Mkhize<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Health minister Dr Zweli Mkhize has announced that there are now 298,292 total cases of coronavirus in South Africa.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":409789,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-416233","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trending","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416233","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=416233"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416233\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":416281,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416233\/revisions\/416281"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/409789"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=416233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=416233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=416233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}