South Africa has finally commenced the rollout of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine as President Cyril Ramaphosa got vaccinated, allaying any fears that people might have about the vaccine.
According to the BBC news report, President Cyril Ramaphosa was injected in front of the cameras in Khayelitsha District Hospital in Cape Town.
The Health Minister Zweli Mkhize and other healthcare workers were also vaccinated with the first batch of 80,000 of the Johnson & Johnson doses which arrived in the country on Tuesday evening.
Speaking on the vaccination, President Cyril Ramaphosa said;
“This day represents a real milestone for us as South Africans that finally the vaccines are here, and they are being administered.
“And I was rather pleased that there were five people who were vaccinated before me, and they are health workers, and it was a joy to watch them to see whether anything had happened to them, and gladly nothing had happened to them.
“And it means that being vaccinated is a fairly straightforward process.”
What you should know
- South Africa was due to commence its vaccine rollout last week but it was delayed because of concerns over the effectiveness of the AstraZeneca vaccine.
- South Africa’s drugs regulator, South African Health Products Regulatory Authority (SAHPRA) gave a go-ahead to the implementation study of Johnson & Johnson’s COVID-19 vaccine, thus making way for the first inoculation of the vaccines amongst the health workers.
- Johnson & Johnson vaccine is a single-dose shot and it is considered easier to administer.
- As of today, South Africa has total reported cases of 1.49million, 1.4million persons had recovered while 48,313 deaths were recorded.
