(4 minutes read)
· The South African government is arranging for jabs at places convenient to people to boost the number of people vaccinated
· The Johnson & Johnson jabs were given at the pop-up centers
· Even then the number of people getting vaccinated is dropping, according to some reports creating consternation among government functionaries and health workers.
The South African government is arranging for jabs at places convenient to people to boost the number of people vaccinated. The Johnson & Johnson jabs were given at the pop-up centers. Even then the number of people getting vaccinated is dropping, according to some reports creating consternation among government functionaries and health workers.
Faced with slowing numbers of people getting COVID-19 vaccinations, South Africa has also opened eligibility to all adults to step up the volume of inoculations. The country is now battling a surge in the disease driven by the delta variant. South Africa is now offering shots to everyone aged above 18. Even then the volume of shots given per day has dropped. Now, vaccines are more widely available as against the situation a few weeks ago, when there was a vaccine shortage.
Currently, less than 200,000 jabs are being given per day. It is down from 250,000 earlier this month. The country has set target to vaccinate 300,000. Health officials decided to offer jabs to the younger adults immediately to boost the number of vaccinated people instead of waiting until September as had been planned earlier..
South Africa has recorded more than 13,000 new COVID-19 infections, including 317 deaths in the last 24 hours. Death toll is above 80,000 people. However, there are unofficial reports that it could be three times higher than that. The country has vaccinated so far more than 10 million people, of which 4.6 million are fully vaccinated, either by the one dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine or with two doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech. The target is to inoculate 40 million people by February 2022, a four – fold increase in the number of jabs. South Africa now has an adequate supply, mostly from doses it has purchased or donated by the U.S.- nearly 6 million Pfizer-BioNTech doses. A new study has indicated that vaccine acceptance among South Africans has increased, a change brought out through sustained holding of awareness programs.
