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President Cyril Ramaphosa says that the Solidarity Fund will make an initial payment of R327 million for the acquisition of a Covid-19 vaccine.
“As we have said in the past, the only viable defense we will have against Covid-19 will be the vaccine,” the president said in an address to the nation on Thursday night (December 3).
It comes after the country recorded more than 4,000 new infections for the second day in a row, and the rate soared since early November in what has been seen as a second wave of the virus.
This has forced the president to announce new closure measures in Nelson Mandela Bay.
Now there are many initiatives in the world to accelerate the development of a vaccine, said the president.
“We continue to collaborate with our partners in the international community to ensure that all countries have access to an effective and affordable vaccine.”
Ramaphosa said the country is participating in the World Health Organization’s Global Covid-19 Vaccine Access Facility, known as the Covax Facility, which aims to pool resources and share the risk of vaccine development to ensure access. equitable to vaccines when available.
“We are encouraged that the Solidarity Fund will make the initial contribution of R327 million for the acquisition of this vaccine on behalf of our country.
“We are also encouraged by the promising results of three candidate vaccine trials, which have shown efficacy levels of between 70 and 95%,” he said.
The president said the government will await confirmation from drug regulators that these vaccines are safe, effective and appropriate.
“In South Africa, our own Medical Devices Regulatory Authority (SAHPRA) will review approval requests when received from developers and authorize their use.
“But let us remember that until a vaccine is developed and distributed, we will remain our best protection against Covid-19,” Ramaphosa said.
He stressed that it is through our daily actions that the citizens of the country will be safe. “It is by wearing a mask in public at all times.”
South Africa is organizing three trials, including for Johnson & Johnson and a partnership between AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford.
The country confirmed last week that it plans to subscribe to Covax, a global initiative that strives to ensure poorer countries have access to vaccines, Bloomberg reported.
The National Treasury paid 500 million rand ($ 33 million) for the program and it will need to find another 4.5 billion rand to move “to the front of the queue,” Finance Minister Tito Mboweni said in an interview.
However, News24 reported that the country missed the first payment window to join Covax.
The proposal will initially provide doses for just 3% of South Africa’s population of about 59 million, according to Anban Pillay, deputy director general of the Department of Health, or 10% in the longer term.
The government has said that priority will be given to frontline healthcare workers and the elderly, which means advance purchase agreements with pharmaceutical companies will be needed to protect the wider community, Bloomberg said.
The UK became the first Western country to approve a Covid-19 vaccine, with its regulator overtaking Pfizer Inc and BioNTech SE ahead of decisions in the US and the European Union.
The emergency authorization paves the way for the deployment of a vaccine that, according to Pfizer and its German partner, is 95% effective in preventing disease.
Read: South Africa’s state of disaster extended until 2021 when Ramaphosa announces local lockdown restrictions
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