South Africa will be receiving 1.5 million doses of vaccine from Serum Institute of India (SII), country’s health minister, Dr Zweli Mkhize said in a statement.
“Today, I am pleased to announce that the Serum Institute of India (SII) has given us permission to make a public announcement and start engaging with all relevant stakeholders in preparation for the roll out,” he said.
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The country will be receiving 1 million doses in January and 500,000 doses in February from the SII.
The minister reiterated that an estimated 1.25 million health care workers from both public and private hospitals will be the first in line to get access to the vaccine.
In order to strengthen the credibility of the process, the acquisition has been done directly by the Department of Health, Mkhize said.
“We will now be engaging all relevant stakeholders in order to ensure the efficient and effective roll out of the vaccine for our health workers,” he added.
According to the latest government statistics, South Africa witnessed a record 21, 832 new cases and 844 new deaths in the last 24 hours, taking the total number of positive cases to around 1.15 million and 31,368 deaths.
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