{"id":451502,"date":"2020-11-25T08:17:03","date_gmt":"2020-11-25T06:17:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=451502"},"modified":"2020-11-25T08:40:03","modified_gmt":"2020-11-25T06:40:03","slug":"south-africa-paid-r500-million-for-access-to-covid-19-vaccines-with-billions-more-budgeted","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/trending\/451502\/south-africa-paid-r500-million-for-access-to-covid-19-vaccines-with-billions-more-budgeted\/","title":{"rendered":"South Africa paid R500 million for access to Covid-19 vaccines – with billions more budgeted"},"content":{"rendered":"

South Africa has paid R500 million to participate in the Covax program, which strives to supply low- and middle-income countries with proven Covid-19 vaccines to ensure equitable access around the world, says finance minister Tito Mboweni.<\/p>\n

In a Bloomberg<\/a> <\/strong>webinar on Tuesday (24 November), Mboweni said he will find a further R4.5 billion from the budget to make sure South Africa has an adequate supply and is at ‘the front of the queue’ when vaccines become available.<\/p>\n

The global Covax alliance has raised more than $2 billion and secured deals for roughly 700 million doses so far.<\/p>\n

“South Africa is in the fortunate position that we have been invited to participate in the consortium that is looking for this vaccine. I just hope<\/span> that we do not face a second wave of the pandemic,” Mboweni said.<\/p>\n

When asked about whether a vaccine will materially shift the country’s growth prospects, Mboweni answered that ‘it has to’.<\/p>\n

“The healthier the population is, the less the chances of another lockdown, (which will mean) that the green shoots start growing and become much more significant. I am very confident about it.”<\/p>\n

Mboweni would not be drawn into answering when a vaccine would be available, instead stating that he was ‘kicking into touch’ as the finance minister.<\/p>\n

Three major Covid-19 vaccine trials have shown promising results in the last month, with the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca announcing on Monday that its vaccine stopped an average of 70% of participants from falling ill.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s below the high bar set by Pfizer and Moderna, but effectiveness rose to 90% for one of two dosing regimes, using half a dose followed by a full one later.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe see a lot of merit in this regimen and we will now start discussions with regulators into incorporating this dose combination for further clinical investigation,\u201d an Astra spokesman said.<\/p>\n

\n

Read: New data shows Astra-Oxford vaccine prevents average of 70% of Covid cases<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

South Africa has paid R500 million to participate in the Covax program, which strives to supply low- and middle-income countries with proven Covid-19 vaccines to ensure equitable access around the world, says Finance minister Tito Mboweni.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":404765,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-451502","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\/451502","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=451502"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/451502\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":451604,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/451502\/revisions\/451604"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/404765"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=451502"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=451502"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=451502"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}