Covid-19: South Africa is preparing to launch its vaccination campaign
Thabisle Khlatshwayo, a South African volunteer, getting ready to receive a vaccine against Covid-19 being tested in Johannesburg, November 30, 2020 © AP / Jerome Delay
Text by: RFI Follow
2 min
While South Africa is the country most affected on the continent by the coronavirus epidemic, with more than 43,000 dead and 1.4 million contaminations, the first vaccines against Covid-19 must be delivered there on Monday February 1st.
Publicity
Read more
For South Africa, it is a race against time.
Hit hard by a second wave and a more contagious variant, the country has recorded more than 500 deaths every day in recent weeks.
Faced with the emergency, Pretoria did not wait for the delivery of vaccines from the Covax device from the World Health Organization.
And bought his own doses.
A million doses must be delivered from Monday: AstraZeneca vaccines acquired at a high price - 4.3 euros per dose - from an Indian laboratory, the Institute Serum of India.
The South African president complained of a price twice as high as that paid by rich countries, the latter having obtained preferential tariffs for having invested in research of the vaccine.
South Africa is also due to receive 9 million vaccines from the Johnson & Johnson laboratory, which has yet to be validated by US health authorities.
As well as 12 million WHO dose.
The South African government plans to prioritize immunization of its health workers, i.e. 1.2 million people.
Then ultimately 60% of its population
, or 40 million South Africans, in order to obtain group immunization.
On the other hand, questions remain as to the effectiveness of these vaccines against the South African variant.
Last week, several studies seemed to indicate that they were less efficient against this mutant virus.
Newsletter
Receive all the international news directly in your mailbox
I subscribe
Follow all the international news by downloading the RFI application
google-play-badge_FR
South Africa
Coronavirus
Vaccines