South Africa gets first batch of coronavirus vaccine

South Africa on Monday, February 1, took delivery of its first shipment of the COVID-19 vaccines.

This move should pave the way to the first phase of inoculation in the African continent's worst-hit country.

According to the report by the South African public broadcaster, SABC, President Cyril Ramaphosa at Johannesburg’s O.R. Tambo International airport received one million doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, produced by the Serum Institute of India.

More doses of the vaccine are expected into the country later this month.

Health workers are the main targets in phase 1 of the vaccination, and about 1.2 million health workers are expected to get vaccinated.

Injections will start to be administered in about two weeks after the vaccines go through quarantine, regulatory and quality-control procedures.

With at least 1.45 million detected infections and more than 44,000 fatalities, South Africa has the highest number of cases and deaths in Africa.

The authorities plan to vaccinate at least 67 per cent of the population, or 40 million people, by year’s end.

The government, which has been accused of being slow to acquire Covid vaccines, announced at the weekend that it had secured an additional 20 million doses — this time of the Pfizer/BioNTech formula.

South Africa’s outbreak has been accelerated by a new variant said to be more contagious than earlier strains of the virus.