Daily Covid-19 update: Death toll rises sharply in North West 

71 additional Covid-19-related deaths were reported across the country on Friday night, with the Department of Health saying the death toll is now at 54,066. 

The most deaths occurred in the North West, in which 40 people died. 14 deaths were reported in the Eastern Cape, followed by five in KwaZulu-Natal, three in Gauteng and Mpumalanga, and two in the Northern and Western Cape. 

The country’s recovery rate still stands at 95%, with 1,499,110 recoveries. 

So far, South Africa has reported 1,572,985 Covid-19 cases, most of which occurring in Gauteng. 

23 April 2021 #COVID19 statistics in South Africa #CoronaVirusSA pic.twitter.com/iUQ1mfyh8o

— Department of Health (@HealthZA) April 23, 2021

Manufacturing hurdles 

Removing intellectual property protections from Covid-19 vaccines or pressuring companies into technology sharing will not speed up production of the jabs, and could even slow it down, the industry has warned.

Proponents of doing away with IP rights say more companies in more countries could produce the vaccines, providing broader access in poorer nations that so far have seen few doses.

President Cyril Ramaphosa, whose country is co-leading a push at the World Trade Organisation to exempt Covid-19 vaccines from IP rights, insisted Friday the jabs were “a public good and must be recognised as such”.

“We call on the pharmaceutical industry to directly transfer this technology free of intellectual property barriers to low and middle-income countries,” he told an event hosted by the World Health Organization. 

“Let us together challenge vaccine nationalism and show that protecting intellectual property rights does not come at the expense of human lives.”

Vaccine makers have voiced broad commitment to cooperating to boost production, but at a separate event on Friday, industry representatives insisted that IP waivers and forced technology sharing was the wrong way to go.

Additional reporting by AFP