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JOHANNESBURG, June 25 (Reuters) - South Africa aims to more
than double the rate of daily COVID-19 vaccinations over the
next month to more than 200,000 as more Pfizer and
Johnson & Johnson shots arrive, health officials said on
Friday.
The country's vaccination campaign has started slowly, set
back by the revelation that AstraZeneca's vaccine is
much less effective against the dominant local coronavirus
variant.
The government found it difficult to secure supplies from
other manufacturers given huge global demand.
So far, only 2.5 million vaccinations have been administered
using either the one-shot J&J vaccine or the two-shot Pfizer
alternative, out of a population of 60 million people, health
ministry data show.
"Now we are able to do, and we have done, just over 100,000
a day for the last two days. Our target for next week is to get
up to 150,000 a day, and by mid-July 200,000 a day with a target
by the end of July of being able to have enough resources in the
field to do 250,000 vaccinations a day," Nicholas Crisp, a
senior official involved in the vaccine rollout, told a news
conference.
"The president has asked us to chase a target of 300,000 a
day, and I think all of us in the vaccination response programme
are going to work hard to try and get to that point," he added.
Acting health minister Mmamoloko Kubayi-Ngubane said Pfizer
had delivered nearly 4.5 million vaccine doses in the second
quarter and had committed to provide just over 15.5 million
doses in the third quarter, including nearly 2.1 million doses
in July.
In total South Africa has secured 30 million Pfizer shots
and 31 million from J&J.
J&J has delivered 500,000 shots for a research study
targeting healthcare workers, 300,000 last week and 1.2 million
on Thursday, Kubayi-Ngubane said. A further 500,000 J&J doses
are expected soon, but the timing is not yet confirmed.
"With this flow of vaccines, we will be able to press ahead
with the vaccination of frontline workers sector by sector," she
said. So far South Africa has started immunising health workers,
those aged over 60 years and education sector employees.
From July 15, the over-50s will start getting the vaccine,
the acting minister said.
(Reporting by Alexander Winning, editing by Louise Heavens)
