JOHANNESBURG: South Africa will begin rolling out vaccines against Covid-19 without the need to approve local regulation of shooting, a step that other low- and middle-income countries are expected to follow to inoculate their populations against coronavirus.
South Africa’s health ministry said the country will receive in January 1 million doses of the vaccine developed by Oxford University and AstraZeneca PLC from the Indian Serum Institute, which has an agreement to manufacture and distribute the injections. A second shipment of 500,000 doses is expected by February. The vaccine requires two doses to achieve its maximum effect.
Other countries in sub-Saharan Africa and the developing world are likely to mimic South Africa’s decision to bypass local regulators in an effort to speed up the shooting of at least some of its most at-risk citizens. Some have no national drug approval authorities and are expected to rely on World Health Organization certification to deploy Covid-19 vaccines.
The shots South Africa ordered in India will be given to health workers, who have suffered the weight of a wave in the new Covid-19 cases. Researchers believe the new wave of infections has been exacerbated by a new, probably more transmissible variant of the coronavirus discovered in the country. In December alone, 5,000 health workers tested positive for the disease, which added to the burden on hospitals that were already in trouble.
South Africa, a country of 60 million people, reported 21,832 new cases of Covid-19 on Wednesday, its highest daily count, and 392 deaths. Nearly a third of coronavirus tests are again positive (an indication that the actual number of infections is likely to be much higher) and the South African Medical Research Council said it recorded close to 7,000 deaths. in excess the Christmas week, most probably due until Covid-19.