Four things you need to know about the 5.6-million Pfizer jabs donated to SA

29 July 2021 - 14:00 By unathi nkanjeni
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A donation of 5.6-million Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccines from the US is making its way to SA. Stock image.
A donation of 5.6-million Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccines from the US is making its way to SA. Stock image.
Image: 123RF/ssilver

A donation of 5.6-million Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccines from the US is making its way to the country, with the first shipment expected to land on Saturday. 

The donation is said to be the largest bilateral contribution to support SA's efforts to curb the spread of the virus and accelerate economic recovery.

Once the vaccines land, they will be taken for laboratory testing.

Here is what you need to know:

US donation to cover 2.5-million South Africans

US President Joe Biden pledged to donate 500-million vaccine doses globally, including sharing doses with African countries through the Covax facility and in co-ordination with the Africa CDC and the AU.

The US embassy saidin a statement, the donation was a gift to SA, and would be enough to fully vaccinate more than 2.5-million South Africans. 

“South Africans know they can count on the US, as a friend and partner, to support their efforts to fight the pandemic and get their economy back on track,” US embassy chief of mission Todd Haskell said.

US committed to bringing urgency to international vaccine efforts

Speaking to BusinessLIVE Dana Banks, special assistant to Biden and senior director for Africa at the National Security Council, said the US was committed to bringing urgency to international vaccine efforts.

“We are sharing these vaccines to save lives and lead the world in bringing an end to the pandemic,” she said. 

“We are sharing these vaccines not to secure favours or concessions: they come with no strings attached.”

Over 7-million vaccines administered so far

The Solidarity Fund supports the delivery of these vaccine doses, which will begin arriving at OR Tambo International Airport in Johannesburg. 

To date, SA has administered over 7-million vaccine doses of which 225,808 were distributed on Tuesday.

The country needs to vaccinate a minimum of 67% of the population to achieve herd immunity.

Health department plans to administer 300,000 vaccinations per day 

The Department of Health's deputy director-general for the National Health Insurance, Dr Nicholas Crisp, told CapeTalk that the donation was very large and it may take a couple of days for the laboratory to go through all the data. 

He said the allocation of the vaccines to sites will be based on their capacity. 

“I won’t sleep until it's all here. We are at the lowest amounts of doses we’ve ever had since the start of the [vaccine] programme. Some sites are without vaccines,” said Crisp. 

“The good news is the system is geared to deliver well over 300,000 vaccinations per day and hopefully, within the next 10 to 15 days we’ll be administering a million doses every three days”. 


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