{"id":476360,"date":"2021-03-16T16:15:08","date_gmt":"2021-03-16T14:15:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=476360"},"modified":"2021-03-16T16:15:08","modified_gmt":"2021-03-16T14:15:08","slug":"south-africa-approves-pfizer-covid-19-vaccine-for-emergency-use","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/trending\/476360\/south-africa-approves-pfizer-covid-19-vaccine-for-emergency-use\/","title":{"rendered":"South Africa approves Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine for emergency use"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The South African Health Products Regulatory Authority (Sahpra) has <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.sahpra.org.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/MEDIA-RELEASE-Pfizer-Section-21.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">approved<\/a> <\/strong>a section 21 emergency-use application for the Covid-19 vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech.<\/p>\n<p>Sahpra said in a <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/article\/health-coronavirus-safrica\/south-african-regulator-approves-pfizer-biontech-vaccine-for-emergency-use-idUSL8N2LE4ZR\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">statement<\/a><\/strong> that the approval was subject to further efficacy and safety surveillance of the vaccine in the country, including against the dominant local coronavirus variant.<\/p>\n<p>The regulator said it has three pillars to ensure that medicines, medical devices and meet the requisite standards to protect the health and well-being of all who reside in South Africa:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Safety;<\/li>\n<li>Efficacy;<\/li>\n<li>Quality.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Government has secured a total of 43 million doses through deals with pharmaceutical companies Johnson &amp; Johnson, Pfizer and the Covax group.<\/p>\n<p>However, just a fraction of these vaccines has been sent to the country, with the manufacturers operating on a quarterly basis for deliveries.<\/p>\n<p>For the first quarter, which ends on 31 March, government has anticipated 500,000 doses of Johnson &amp; Johnson and 600,000 doses from Pfizer. This makes it difficult to track annual targets, Health minister Dr Zweli Mkhize said in a <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/trending\/475078\/mkhize-on-south-africa-hitting-its-covid-19-vaccine-targets\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">briefing<\/a> <\/strong>last week.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn other words, at the moment, all we can tell is that by this quarter, this is likely to be how much we will get,\u201d said Mkhize.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOnce we have got the matter refined, we will be in a position to know month by month or even week by week supplies of what they will give us. That helps us with the planning of the vaccination programme.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He said that government is expecting a further eight million doses between April and June, which will be used to complete vaccination for healthcare workers and start phase two of the programme which will focus on at-risk groups.<\/p>\n<p>This means that phase 3 of the programme \u2013 which focuses on the bulk of the population \u2013 will only start sometime between July and September, with a further 11.6 million doses expected.<\/p>\n<p>As of Tuesday (16 March), the total number of vaccines administered to healthcare workers in South Africa stands at 147,753.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Read: <a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/476342\/south-africa-among-countries-left-with-a-massive-bill-from-fighting-for-covid-vaccine-scraps\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">South Africa among countries left with a massive bill from fighting for Covid vaccine scraps<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The South African Health Products Regulatory Authority (Sahpra) has approved a section 21 emergency-use application for the Covid-19 vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":456722,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-476360","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\/476360","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=476360"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/476360\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":476366,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/476360\/revisions\/476366"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/456722"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=476360"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=476360"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=476360"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}