Steady supply of Pfizer Covid-19 doses keeps vaccination momentum going

Just over 1.6-million vaccines have been administered in SA as the health department ramps up efforts to vaccinate more people while the third wave of Covid-19 infections hits the country.

Although there have been questions about the availability of the Johnson & Johnson (J&J) vaccine - with the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) saying J&J must throw away millions of doses of its Covid-19 vaccine manufactured at a Baltimore facility - SA is still receiving Pfizer vaccines to keep the vaccination momentum going.

Pfizer continues to supply SA with 636,000 vaccines per week, said Business for SA (B4SA).

B4SA met acting health minister Mmamoloko Kubayi-Ngubane at the weekend and reconfirmed its commitment to supporting the health department with the vaccination rollout.

SA health authorities have announced 300,000 doses of the J&J vaccine were cleared to be shipped to SA as a matter of extreme urgency. These are from batches that have been cleared by the FDA.

Regarding the number of vaccines administered daily, B4SA said: “As of midnight on June 9, we are looking at roughly 85,245 per day. We still have a long way to go."

On Sunday Kubayi-Ngubane said government was looking to move faster with administering vaccines, with a target of about 250,000 people every day.

B4SA said everyone should register on government’s electronic vaccination data system (EVDS) platform if they are 60 years old and above. 

TimesLIVE