Serum Institute of India to provide 1.5 million Covid-19 vaccines to South Africa
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Johannesburg: South Africa will receive one million Covid-19 vaccines from the Pune-based Serum Institute of India this month, followed by an additional 500,000 doses in February, the health minister told Parliament on Thursday, amid a spike in coronavirus deaths and infections in the country.
Drug major AstraZeneca has partnered with the Serum Institute of India (SII), the world's largest vaccine manufacturer, for the supply of the vaccine to the Indian government and also to a large number of low and middle-income countries.
The vaccine, developed with the University of Oxford, is made from a virus which is a weakened version of a common cold virus (adenovirus), that has been genetically changed so that it is impossible for it to grow in humans.
Addressing Parliament's portfolio committee on health, health minister Zweli Mkhize said the imported vaccines would be used to vaccinate frontline healthcare workers.
"Today we announce that South Africa will be receiving the first one million doses of vaccine in January and another 500,000 in February from the Serum Institute of India," Mkhize said.
Read also: Serum Institute, Bharat Biotech pledged to work jointly on COVID-19 vaccine rollout project
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