CAPE Town – The number of vaccines administered in the country, since the beginning of the week has declined as compared to the previous weeks.
As per the latest data about 176 752 vaccines were administered yesterday, while just over 16 000 vaccines were administered on Monday, which is way below the 300 000 target set by President Cyril Ramaphosa.
During last week’s media briefing, deputy director-general of the Department of Health Dr Nicholas Crisp, said the department was gearing to do well over 300 000 vaccinations a day.
Crisp said "This week is the least vaccines we've ever had in the system. We are geared to do well over 300 000 vaccinations a day. We have this little window of this week where we have not yet received the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.“
“Once these vaccines arrive, the country could have at least 50 days of vaccines available. This would exponentially bolster South Africa’s vaccination programme and see it go flat out,” he said.
In the last 24 hours, over 46 000 vaccines were administered in Gauteng, 28 000 in the Western Cape and 25 000 in KwaZulu-Natal. So far a total of 8 811 608 vaccines have been administered in the country.
Meanwhile, the Gauteng Health Department has increased the number of public vaccination sites from 16 to 26. Vaccination sites in the province are also accepting walk-ins whether people are registered or not.
More than 5.7 million Covid-19 vaccines arrived in South Africa last week from the US. The country has also purchased more than 40 million Pfizer/BioNTech doses, which are being delivered in regular shipments, and 30 million Johnson & Johnson doses.