Nearly 500,000 South Africans were vaccinated for Covid-19 on Monday as the country ramps up its fight against the pandemic nationwide, the health ministry said on Tuesday.
The vaccinations meant that nearly five million adults are now fully inoculated, the ministry said.
According to the latest data from the ministry, some 10,790,501 shots of the single-dose Johnson & Johnson and double-dose Pfizer vaccines have been distributed since the vaccination programme started in February.
The dramatic increase in vaccinations has been due to the government’s opening up the injections to the youthful group of between 18 and 35 years old in the country on Friday, the ministry said.
Meanwhile, Covid-19 infections continued to increase, with 7,632 new cases having been recorded among South Africans.
According to the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD), this brought the total to 2,698,605 infections since the first case was reported in March 2020.
The majority of new cases were recorded in KwaZulu-Natal province (2,542), followed by Western Cape (1,634) and Eastern Cape (1,286), the agency said.
Some 163 people succumbed to the respiratory disease on Monday, bringing the death toll to 79,584 to date, the NICD said.
There were 345 admissions reported in the past 24 hours, increasing the number to 13,537 people in the country’s hospitals, it said.
NM/jn/APA