COVID-19 VACCINE: THERE’S STILL NO CLARITY ON WHEN VACCINES WILL ARRIVE IN SA

The US and the UK have already started administering the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine to their citizens.

Eyewitness News 

JOHANNESBURG - While South Africa is in line to receive a COVID-19 vaccine, there is still no clarity on when the ground-breaking treatment will land on home soil.

The US and the UK have already started administering the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine to their citizens.

The Solidarity Fund forked out the R327 million deposit to the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) Covax facility – the global initiative to ensure rapid and equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines for all countries - to acquire the vaccine.

The down payment is meant to secure the treatment for 10% of the country’s population.

The National Institute for Communicable Diseases’ (NICD) Professor Adrian Puren on Saturday said: “There is a great push in the UK and other countries with healthcare workers who have been in the frontline being given, for example, the proportion of those vaccines earlier given the current state of the pandemic to try and protect those vulnerable workers.”