Over 250 000 children vaccinated in SA since October

There are now over a quarter of a million children in South Africa who have received their first dose of the Pfizer vaccine since 20 October 2021.

According to the Department of Health, of the 136 550 vaccine doses that were distributed on Thursday, 10 363 were given to adolescents between the ages of 12 and 17.

This means there are now 252 934 children who are vaccinated against Covid-19.

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Meanwhile, 23 684 440 vaccine shots have been administered since the start of the inoculation programme, while the country is home to 13 225 253 fully vaccinated adults.

Of those who have already received at least one shot of the vaccine, 57.11% are women and 42.89% are men.

The total number of vaccines administered in South Africa stood at 23 832 377 as of Friday.

393 new Covid cases recorded

At the same time, the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) on Friday evening said 393 new coronavirus cases were recorded in South Africa over the last 24-hour reporting cycle.

This brought the total number of laboratory-confirmed cases to 2,925,371. The cumulative number of recoveries stood at 2 819 307 with a recovery rate of 96,4%.

“This increase represents a 1.3% positivity rate. As per the National Department of Health, a further 17 Covid-19 related deaths have been reported, bringing total fatalities to 89,469 to date. 18,865,934 tests have been conducted in both public and private sectors,” the NICD said in a statement.

The majority of new cases were from Gauteng (44%) followed by the Northern Cape and Western Cape each accounting for 10%, respectively.

KwaZulu-Natal accounted for 8%, Mpumalanga 7%, Free State and Eastern Cape each accounted for 6%, respectively.

Limpopo accounted for 5% and North West accounted for 4% of Friday’s new cases.

Additional reporting by Thapelo Lekabe.

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