South Africa to roll out Covid booster shots next month

Hello and welcome to the details of South Africa to roll out Covid booster shots next month and now with the details

A healthcare worker administers the Pfizer coronavirus disease (Covid-19) vaccine to Simphiwe, 13, amidst the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 variant Omicron in Johannesburg, South Africa, December 04, 2021. — Reuters pic
Nevin Al Sukari - Sana'a - A healthcare worker administers the Pfizer coronavirus disease (Covid-19) vaccine to Simphiwe, 13, amidst the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 variant Omicron in Johannesburg, South Africa, December 04, 2021. — Reuters pic

JOHANNESBURG, Dec 10 — South Africa will next month start giving Pfizer booster shots against coronavirus, a health official said today, a day after the country reported a near-record high in daily cases of the disease.

“The first people who will qualify for the booster dose in South Africa will be people over the age of 60 years,” Dr Nicolas Crisp, director general at the health ministry, told a weekly news conference.

Experts are working to determine whether current Covid vaccines will work against the new highly-mutated variant, which was discovered by South African scientists last month.

The daily number of new Covid infections surged to a high of 22,391 yesterday, when nearly 30 per cent of tests were positive.

The highest daily tally so far was in early July, when the country hit more 26,000 new infections.

Health practitioners last month had already started being offered Johnson & Johnson shots as boosters.

South Africa is the worst-hit country in the continent for coronavirus, recording a cumulative 3.09 million cases, of which over 90,000 have been fatal.

A small study this week by the country’s African Health Research Institute, not yet peer reviewed, suggested that Omicron may be able to evade some of the antibody immunity from the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.

But, its authors said, there was no reason to believe that vaccination would not protect against from severe disease caused by the variant.

Slightly more than a quarter of South Africa’s population are fully vaccinated, with the figure among adults being 43 per cent.

Omicron accounts for around 70 per cent of new infections being detected in South Africa, Health Minister Joe Phaahla has said.

However, hospitalised patients are so far showing mild symptoms, he said. — AFP

These were the details of the news South Africa to roll out Covid booster shots next month for this day. We hope that we have succeeded by giving you the full details and information. To follow all our news, you can subscribe to the alerts system or to one of our different systems to provide you with all that is new.

It is also worth noting that the original news has been published and is available at Malay Mail and the editorial team at AlKhaleej Today has confirmed it and it has been modified, and it may have been completely transferred or quoted from it and you can read and follow this news from its main source.

NEXT Blinken vows support for Central Asian nations’ independence in bid to weaken Russia’s influence

Author Information

I am Jeff King and I’m passionate about business and finance news with over 4 years in the industry starting as a writer working my way up into senior positions. I am the driving force behind Al-KhaleejToday.NET with a vision to broaden the company’s readership throughout 2016. I am an editor and reporter of “Financial” category. Address: 383 576 Gladwell Street Longview, TX 75604, USA Phone: (+1) 903-247-0907 Email: [email protected]