{"id":473508,"date":"2021-03-05T13:12:08","date_gmt":"2021-03-05T11:12:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=473508"},"modified":"2021-03-05T13:12:08","modified_gmt":"2021-03-05T11:12:08","slug":"south-africa-to-miss-covid-19-vaccination-targets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/473508\/south-africa-to-miss-covid-19-vaccination-targets\/","title":{"rendered":"South Africa to miss Covid-19 vaccination targets"},"content":{"rendered":"

South Africa expects to miss its target of inoculating 1.5 million people by the end of this month because sufficient shots aren\u2019t available, Bloomberg<\/a> <\/strong>reports.<\/p>\n

“We expect now only to complete 700,000 vaccines by end of March,\u201d Deputy Health Minister Joe Phaahla said in an online briefing on Friday.<\/p>\n

“We are expecting more Johnson & Johnson vaccines and some from Pfizer, but we will still be behind target. However, we hope<\/span> to be back on track once production of the various vaccines ramps up.”<\/p>\n

On Thursday, Health minister Dr Zweli Mkhize said South Africa is expecting an extra 500,000 Johnson & Johnson vaccines between now and the end of March.<\/p>\n

About three million doses will arrive between April and June, while the remaining jabs will follow in the next two quarters of the year.<\/p>\n

According to the minister, the country is also anticipating about 600,000 Pfizer Covid-19 vaccines to land in South Africa before the end of March.<\/p>\n

“Between five and seven million are expected to arrive in April to June and after that, we should get more,” he said.<\/p>\n

“Again, with Pfizer, we still need to sign the first agreement and confirm the second agreement,\u201d he said, adding that the country has 20 million doses from the pharmaceutical company.<\/p>\n

In addition, he announced that the Covax facility will also be shipping about 600,000 to the country.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, government is still finalising discussions with Russia\u2019s Sputnik V, which is currently undergoing the process of registration locally, and China\u2019s Sinopharm.<\/p>\n

Mkhize said the Johnson & Johnson vaccine has demonstrated to have the most effective action against the 501Y.V2 variant.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe others such as Pfizer and Moderna have also demonstrated some degree of activity. However, that was demonstrated in a lab setting and not a clinical trial, so in the process are some of the considerations that we take into account as we go through the selection of vaccines.\u201d<\/p>\n

He has assured South Africans that the two vaccines \u2013 Johnson & Johnson and Pfizer \u2013 are the best to deal with 501Y.V2.<\/p>\n

\n

Read: Government starts processing new Covid-19 TERS claims in South Africa<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

South Africa expects to miss its target of inoculating 1.5 million people by the end of this month because sufficient shots aren\u2019t available<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":460758,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-473508","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/473508","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=473508"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/473508\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":473518,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/473508\/revisions\/473518"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/460758"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=473508"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=473508"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=473508"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}