Covid-19 update: SA records 16,240 new cases and 516 deaths

As of Wednesday, the National Institute For Communicable Diseases (NICD) has reported 16,240 new Covid-19 cases that have been identified in South Africa.

This takes a total of laboratory confirmed cases to 2,327,472.

The institute says that this increase represents a 27.5% positivity rate.

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According to the National Department of Health, a further 516 Covid-19 related deaths have been reported, breaching the 68 000 mark to 68,192.

It said that a total of 14,369,234 tests have been conducted in both public and private sectors.

There has, however, been some good news for the country as Pfizer and BioNTech on Wednesday announced they had struck a deal with the Biovac Institute to manufacture over 100 million doses a year of their Covid-19 vaccine for distribution within the African Union (AU).

The distribution will come from a Cape Town facility and will be incorporated into the vaccine supply chain by the end of 2021.

‘Biovac will perform manufacturing and distribution activities within Pfizer’s and BioNTech’s global Covid-19 vaccine supply chain and manufacturing network, which will now span three continents and include more than 20 manufacturing facilities,” Pfizer-BioNTech said in a statement.

“To facilitate Biovac’s involvement in the process, technical transfer, on-site development and equipment installation activities will begin immediately,” reads the statement.