Faizel Patel – 01/02/2021
As the country prepares to receive the first batch of COVID-19 vaccines, veteran health activist Dr Aslam Dasoo says this is a very hopeful day for South Africa.
The first one million doses of the Oxford AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccines should arrive in South Africa on Monday.
The vaccine was developed by Swedish-British biopharmaceutical company AstraZeneca last year and produced in India by the Serum Institute.
Another 500,000 doses are expected to be delivered next month.
Dr Dasoo says the arrival of the vaccines is an important start in the COVID-19 vaccination process in South Africa.
“The President who contacted his counterpart in India at the beginning of this month to see if he could assist in some from the Serum Institute. Obviously the 1.5 million that’s coming to us is less than what we would have wanted. But it’s an important start given that we are looking to vaccinate the healthcare cohort first.”
Dr Dasoo says people may gravitate more towards the Johnson and Johnson Vaccine because it’s a single dose vaccine.
“It makes it much more convenient to use a single shot vaccine so that you don’t have to ask people to come back for the second one. Just from that logistical point of view it may be much more useful. This of course all depends on whether it gets registered and whether there is vaccines available from Johnson and Johnson. Similar to the others, we dropped the ball on securing an order from them even though the Johnson and Johnson trail was also being conducted here.”
The closely guarded vaccines will be distributed around the country after they arrive in Johannesburg so that the rollout can begin.
Listen to the interview with Dr Aslam Dasoo
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