SA seals deal for 20 million Pfizer Covid-19 jabs – report

South Africa has reportedly concluded a deal to buy 20 million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech dual-shot Covid-19 vaccine.

Citing deputy director-general at the Department of Health, Anban Pillay, Reuters reported that the first batch from Pfizer is expected to arrive later in April.

Last month, the South African Health Products Regulatory Authority (Sahpra) approved a Section 21 application for the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine.

UPDATE: Mkhize: SA to announce revised vaccination programme ‘soon’

This means that the sought-after vaccine has been approved for distribution, but the approval is subject to monitoring the vaccine’s efficacy and safety, Sahpra said.

Pfizer and BioNTech said last week that their Covid-19 vaccine was highly effective against the South African variant in the latest phase of ongoing clinical trials.

With the 30 million vaccines expected from Johnson & Johnson (J&J), South Africa could take delivery of about 50 million vaccines in April.

Meanwhile, South Africa did not inoculate a single person against Covid-19 during the Easter weekend.

The Democratic Alliance (DA) on Tuesday said it was disappointed and would approach the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) to “urgently launch an investigation into the government’s tardy and criminally slow vaccine roll-out strategy”.

Compiled by Neo Thale. Additional reporting by Molefe Seeletsa

For more news your way, download The Citizen’s app for iOS and Android.