South Africa will start vaccinating 18- to 35-year-olds from Friday following increased interest among this age group, the cabinet has announced.
It revealed that the National Coronavirus Command Council (NCCC) had approved the vaccination of this age group and that those falling in this group no longer have to wait until 1 September — which was the initial date to open up registration for them.
“As part of increasing the vaccination roll-out programme, Cabinet approved the vaccination of persons aged between 18- and 35-year-olds from 20th August 2021,” the cabinet said on Thursday.
Cabinet welcomed the vaccination roll-out plan to increase the uptake of vaccines, particularly in provinces that had previous shown little interest in the programme.
The government said scientific evidence confirmed that vaccinated people stood a better chance of surviving from Covid-19 than unvaccinated people.
“Therefore, we must all dispel the unfounded and misleading conspiracy theories about the vaccines and choose life by vaccinating,” cabinet said.
The government encouraged all unvaccinated people in S/Africa to get vaccinated, saying “vaccines protect people from getting seriously ill from Covid-19 and saves lives.”
Over nine million vaccines have been administered in South Africa so far — with over seven million people partially-vaccinated, and over four-million fully-vaccinated, it added.
Cabinet also approved “the keeping of the country under the risk-adjusted Alert Level 3 of the national lockdown as advised by the ministerial advisory committee (on Covid-19).”
NM/jn/APA