Pfizer and BioNTech strike deal with South Africa's Biovac Institute to manufacture and distribute over 100M Covid vaccine doses a year for Africa
South Africa is relying upon the Pfizer vaccine in its mass inoculation drive. It has purchased 40 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine, which are arriving in weekly deliveries.
The Johnson & Johnson vaccine is already being produced in South Africa. Aspen Pharmacare's factory in Gqeberha, formerly Port Elizabeth, is making the J&J vaccine in the same “fill and finish” process and has the capacity to make more than 200 million doses of the vaccine annually. The J&J vaccines made in South Africa are also being distributed across the African continent.
South Africa's vaccination drive is ramping up, with more than 220,000 people getting shots on weekdays. More than 5.5 million of South Africa's 60 million people have received at least one jab, with more than 1.4 million fully vaccinated, according to official figures on Wednesday.Vaccination levels are low across Africa, with less than 2 percent of the continent's population of 1.
Most of the promised doses won’t arrive until next year and although Group of 20 countries pledged to donate a billion Covid-19 vaccines, that is far short of the 11 billion WHO says are needed to protect the world.
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