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By IOL Reporter 
6h ago
Cape Town – A total of 4,058 new cases of Covid-19 have been identified in the country, with 398 more deaths.
The number of new cases increased again after 2 649 were registered yesterday and 2 548 on Monday.
The cumulative number of Covid-19 cases is 1,463,016, Health Minister Zweli Mkhize said in a statement. A total of 8,369,287 tests have been performed, with 39,596 new tests recorded since the last report.
The highest number of deaths was recorded in KwaZulu-Natal (138), followed by Gauteng (97), Western Cape (67), Eastern Cape (46), Mpumalanga (21), Free State (12), Northern Cape (9) and Limpopo (8). This brings the total to 45,344 deaths.
The number of recoveries now stands at 1,323,680, representing a recovery rate of 90.5%.
The Regulatory Authority of Productos Sanitarios de SA (Sahpra) warned that ivermectin is still illegal in the country for use in the treatment and prevention of Covid-19 in humans, except by authorized doctors.
He said there were only 10 doctors approved to use the drug for Covid-19.
Addressing the parliament’s health portfolio committee, Sahpra cautioned that there was insufficient scientific evidence on the use of the drug, both for its safety and efficacy, to treat or prevent Covid-19.
This comes after Sahpra’s approval of the controlled compassionate use drug for Covid-19 amid a legal battle with AfriForum, a doctor and two of his patients in North Gauteng Superior Court.
South Africa will receive a disproportionately high amount of Covid-19 vaccines made by Pfizer, which calls for ultra-low temperatures, figures released by Covax on Wednesday.
More than half of all the first doses of Pfizer that the initiative intends to distribute in Africa will go to South Africa.
Overall, SA’s share of Covax vaccines is 1%, based on an initial forecast, but its share of Pfizer’s allocation is 10%.
Meanwhile, Britain’s GlaxoSmithKline and German biotech company CureVac have partnered on a € 150 million deal to develop a Covid-19 vaccine starting next year that could target multiple variants with a single injection.
New and more contagious Covid-19 mutations have emerged in Britain, South Africa and Brazil, and while existing vaccines appear to offer some protection against them, there are fears that new changes to the virus could evade current vaccines.
MESS
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