South Africa has administered more than 12 million Covid-19 vaccine doses since the vaccination programme started in February, the Department of Health said on Monday.
The department said the number of distributed vaccines stood at 12,021,608 as of Sunday night, with 22,566 of these administered during the previous 24 hours.
It revealed that there were now some 9,099,396 eligible adults who had received their shots, while 5,654,557 had been fully inoculated.
“Together we can vaccinate more people than we have done. Thank you, South Africa,” the ministry said, urging more citizens to visit the vaccination centres set up nationwide.
The National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) has reported 7,740 new Covid-19 cases overnight, bringing the cumulative number of infections to 2,764,931 cases.
The majority of the new cases were from KwaZulu-Natal province after 2,206 people were confirmed to have contracted the virus on Sunday, NCID said.
This was followed by Western Cape’s 1,670 cases, Eastern Cape’s 1,169 cases, and in Gauteng’s 639 cases, it added.
“There has been an increase of 127 hospital admissions in the past 24 hours,” the institute said.
In addition, a further 134 Covid-19 fatalities were recorded — pushing the death toll to 81,595 to date, the NICD said.
NM/jn/APA