After a break, the vaccine campaign is about to resume in the next few days. The injection of the vaccine developed by Johnson & Johnson was stopped after cases of blood clots in six patients in the United States. As no cases have been observed among people vaccinated in South Africa, the campaign will be able to continue, to complete the first phase of caregivers, and the country should soon receive new doses.
as reported from Johannesburg, Claire Bargelès
To date, about 300,000 health workers have received an injection in South Africa. We are therefore very far from promises to vaccinate 40 million people by the end of the year to achieve collective immunity.
The country therefore intends to speed things up, by soon resuming vaccination with the doses developed by Johnson & Johnson, the only ones administered so far by the authorities, while the AstraZeneca vaccine is considered ineffective against the local variant.
And to facilitate logistics, the South African government has decided to use private companies to import and distribute future doses. The country has ordered 31 million from Johnson & Johnson, of which 1 million is due today from the local plant in Aspen. In addition, 30 million doses were purchased from the Pfizer company, with delivery from the end of the month.
The second phase of the vaccination campaign should start in mid-May and will mainly apply to people over the age of 60, who can already register online, as well as people at risk.
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