{"id":529480,"date":"2021-10-15T08:31:12","date_gmt":"2021-10-15T06:31:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=529480"},"modified":"2021-10-15T08:40:27","modified_gmt":"2021-10-15T06:40:27","slug":"south-africa-opens-covid-19-vaccinations-to-children-over-12","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/529480\/south-africa-opens-covid-19-vaccinations-to-children-over-12\/","title":{"rendered":"South Africa opens Covid-19 vaccinations to children over 12"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Health minister Joe Phaahla has announced that the government will open Covid-19 vaccinations to children over the age of 12.<\/p>\n<p>In a media briefing on Friday morning (15 October), Phaahla said that the decision followed a recommendation made by the Ministerial Advisory Committee (MAC) on vaccinations and was confirmed by health officials in a meeting held on Tuesday this week.<\/p>\n<p>Phaahla said that the rollout would officially begin on 20 October as further preparations need to be made to the country&#8217;s Electronic Vaccination Data System (EVDS).<\/p>\n<p>He added that the schools are set to benefit significantly from the announcement as learners prepare to write their end-of-year examinations.<\/p>\n<p>Phaahla said that, initially, a single Pfizer dose will be given to children, with assessments still to be made as to when a second dose will be given. He said this is due to isolated cases reported internationally where heart inflammation has been reported in younger children.<\/p>\n<p>However, Phaahla confirmed that this was just a precautionary measure and that there were no overt risks in having children vaccinated.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/nZrehtAgrCQ\" width=\"640\" height=\"430\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Phaahla also confirmed that South Africa is nearing a vaccination milestone of 20 million vaccinations given, with this achievement set to be reached by the end of Friday.<\/p>\n<p>He added that nearly 35% of the adult population had been given a single jab vaccine, meaning the country was also close to being halfway towards a total target of 70%.<\/p>\n<p>Phaahla said that more than 1.5 million people had already downloaded their Covid-19 vaccinations, with the government now looking to expand the 2,000 attendance limit allowed at sports events.<\/p>\n<p>On Thursday (14 October), South Africa reported 947 new cases of Covid-19, taking the total reported to 2,914,827.<\/p>\n<p>Deaths have reached 88,506 (+40), while recoveries have climbed to 2,802,980, leaving the country with a balance of 23,341 active cases. The total number of vaccines administered is 19,899,964 (+231,787).<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Read: <a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/lifestyle\/529114\/south-africans-rush-to-book-flights-as-travel-restrictions-ease-heres-where-they-are-going\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">South Africans rush to book flights as travel restrictions ease \u2013 here\u2019s where they are going<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Health minister Joe Phaahla has announced that the government will open Covid-19 vaccinations to children over the age of 12.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":466434,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-529480","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\/529480","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=529480"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/529480\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":529514,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/529480\/revisions\/529514"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/466434"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=529480"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=529480"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=529480"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}