Johannesburg – South Africa will have a firm date on when it will get a COVID-19 vaccine in the first few days of January, a senior health ministry official told a television news channel on Thursday.
“The first date (of vaccine delivery) has not been communicated, but by early January they would have a firm date,” Anban Pillay, deputy director general of the National Department of Health, told the news channel SABC.
The vaccine under COVAX can treat only 10% of the population in the country of 58 million people, Professor Barry Schoub, chairperson of the ministerial advisory committee on coronavirus vaccine development, told the news channel.
Leading experts in South Africa’s vaccine procurement strategy say while securing a COVID-19 vaccine is top of the country’s agenda, it is not a magic bullet that will end the pandemic.
“There is a general misunderstanding and we need to clarify that once the vaccines arrive on our doorstep, that is not the end of the epidemic.
“The first branches will go to protect healthcare workers and will have no effect on the population as such.
“Then there will be immunisation of the population and that is going to take a long time,” said Professor Barry Schoub, who is the Ministerial Advisory Committee chairperson on vaccine development.
Schoub, together with the Health Department Deputy Director General, Dr Anban Pillay, and South African Medical Research Council (SAMRC) extramural unit researcher, Safura Abdool Karim, engaged in a panel discussion broadcast by the SABC on the COVID-19 vaccine outlook in 2021.
The panel discussion on vaccine procurement comes as South Africa recorded its highest daily infections, with 17 710 COVID-19 cases on Wednesday, bringing the country’s cumulative total to 1 039 161.
South Africa is set to receive initial vaccines from the COVAX facility to cover 10% of its population in the early part of 2021.
Priority of the vaccine roll out will begin with healthcare workers, the elderly and those with comorbidities.
“The COVAX facility has indicated that we should expect delivery of the vaccine in quarter two [of 2021].
“They are trying very hard to get us delivery before that. If they succeed with the manufacturers, then we may get delivery earlier but we do not have a specific date as yet.
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