{"id":457922,"date":"2020-12-20T07:42:46","date_gmt":"2020-12-20T05:42:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=457922"},"modified":"2020-12-20T07:43:55","modified_gmt":"2020-12-20T05:43:55","slug":"only-3-of-south-africans-to-get-covid-19-vaccine-by-the-first-half-of-next-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/trending\/457922\/only-3-of-south-africans-to-get-covid-19-vaccine-by-the-first-half-of-next-year\/","title":{"rendered":"Only 3% of South Africans to get Covid-19 vaccine by the first half of next year"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Covax vaccine set to be delivered to South Africa by the first half of 2021, will only be enough to cover 3% of the population, the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.news24.com\/citypress\/news\/only-3-to-get-covid-19-vaccine-20201220-3\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">City Press<\/a> reports.<\/p>\n<p>Deputy director-general of health Dr Anban Pillay said in a webinar, that each of the 190 countries set to receive the vaccine will only receive enough to cover 3% of their populations by this period.<\/p>\n<p>This falls some way short of president Cyril Ramaphosa\u2019s original expectation of 10% national vaccination against the coronavirus by July 2021.<\/p>\n<p>According to the report, frontline workers in the public and private sectors will be first in line to receive the vaccine when it becomes available.<\/p>\n<p>While countries are able to order doses directly from vaccine developers, South Africa has lagged behind.<\/p>\n<p>It comes after health minister Dr Zweli Mkhize reported 10,939 new cases on Saturday evening, and 254 new deaths over the past 24 hours, as the virus continues its second wave of infection.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/COVID19?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#COVID19<\/a> Statistics in SA as at 19 December.<\/p>\n<p>Use the COVID Alert SA app to protect yourself, your loved ones and your community. Start using this privacy preserving app today. Add your phone to the fight! Download the Covid Alert SA app now! <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/8YKEqaiiRF\">https:\/\/t.co\/8YKEqaiiRF<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/CfkCUpbn0q\">pic.twitter.com\/CfkCUpbn0q<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Dr Zweli Mkhize (@DrZweliMkhize) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/DrZweliMkhize\/status\/1340372098355748865?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">December 19, 2020<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>He told City Press that the vaccines are expected to work against the new strain of Covid-19 that recently arrived in South Africa.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Missed deadline<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The government has come under fire for missing its first payment deadline to secure Covid-19 vaccines on 15 December.<\/p>\n<p>The payment, which is a deposit to secure Covax vaccines, comprises R327 million and will be made in the coming days from the Solidarity Fund.<\/p>\n<p>The Solidarity Fund recently told Bloomberg it would make the payment as soon as it gets approval from the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisations, which is running Covax.<\/p>\n<p>While the fund will pay the initial deposit, this is only 15% of the R2.2 billion that will ultimately have to be paid for the Covax vaccines.<\/p>\n<p>The government has not yet stated where the balance of these funds will be sourced from.<\/p>\n<p><strong>New Covid-19 variant<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Dr Mkhize also <a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/trending\/457910\/new-covid-19-variant-identified-in-south-africa-as-numbers-rise\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">announced<\/a> this week that a variant of the SARS-COV-2 Virus (Covid-19) \u2013 currently termed the \u2018501.V2 Variant\u2019 \u2013 has been identified by genomics scientists in South Africa.<\/p>\n<p>He said a genomics team, led by the Kwazulu-Natal Research Innovation and Sequencing Platform, or KRISP, has sequenced hundreds of samples from across the country since the beginning of the pandemic in March.<\/p>\n<p>They noticed that a particular variant has increasingly dominated the findings of the samples collected in the past two months.<\/p>\n<p>In addition, clinicians have been providing anecdotal evidence of a shift in the clinical epidemiological picture- in particular noting that they are seeing a larger proportion of younger patients with no co-morbidities presenting with critical illness.<\/p>\n<p>The evidence that has been collated, therefore, strongly suggests that that the current second wave we are experiencing is being driven by this new variant.<\/p>\n<p>Explaining the findings, professor Salim Abdool Karim said the second wave is showing some early signs that it is spreading faster than the first wave.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt is still very early but at this stage, the preliminary data suggests that the virus that is now dominating in the second wave is spreading faster than the first wave. It is not clear if the second wave has more or less deaths, in other words, the severity is still very unclear.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe would expect it to be a less severe virus, but we do not have clear evidence at this point. We have not seen any red flags looking at our current death information,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe had all of these different strains routinely spreading in South Africa during our first wave and subsequently. What became quite different that we did not expect is the rapid way in which this variant has become dominant in South Africa.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>This particular virus has three mutations on the receptor-binding domain, which is the actual part of the virus that attaches to the human cell. One of the interpretations of these changes is that it increases the affinity for the ACE2 receptor, he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe other two mutations possible add some potential antibody escape but the full implications of the combination of the three mutations still need to be understood in more detail.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Karim said the new variant has increased viral loads in the body. He said there are still many issues that need to be investigated.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe don\u2019t know where it came from and we don\u2019t know why it formed. We found the first in Nelson Mandela Bay, but we don\u2019t know if it originated in Nelson Mandela Bay. It is too early to tell if it is more severe.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Mkhize said said there is no evidence to suggest a need to change in clinical treatment and patient management of Covid-19 in the second wave to date and that this discovery does not necessitate additional restrictive measures.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Read: <a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/trending\/457642\/what-happens-when-covid-19-vaccines-becomes-available-in-south-africa\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">What happens when Covid-19 vaccines become available in South Africa?<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Covax vaccine set to be delivered to South Africa by the first half of 2021, will only be enough to cover 3% of the population, the City Press reports.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":448058,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-457922","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\/457922","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=457922"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/457922\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":457928,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/457922\/revisions\/457928"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/448058"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=457922"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=457922"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=457922"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}