Over one million South Africans have now been vaccinated for the coronavirus pandemic since the vaccination rollout started in mid-February this year, Health Minister Zweli Mkhize announced on Wednesday.
Mkhize said the country had vaccinated 479,768 healthcare workers using the single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine, while the rest were 565,336 recipients aged over 60 years who have received their first shots of the double-dose Pfizer jab.
“Therefore, today it is my pleasure to announce that we have breached the million mark and have vaccinated 1,045,104 individuals,” the minister said.
He thanked those involved in the vaccination campaign, from the Director-General of the Ministry of Health to every vaccinator, for continuing to lead the nation’s front lines.
“We will continue to ramp up daily vaccinations, working together with the private sector, towards attaining the targets we have committed to as government,” Mkhize added.
Those committed targets are the vaccination of 1.5 million frontliners to fortify them to in turn vaccinate some 40 million people to create a herd immunity among the country’s 59 million inhabitants.
South Africa has lost 56,601 lives to the deadly virus, the latest being 95 people who succumbed to it overnight, since the pandemic hit the country hard in March 2020.
According to the UN World Health Organisation, some 170,426,245 confirmed global cases of Covid-19 have led to 3,548,628 deaths worldwide.
NM/as/APA