By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
Health minister Dr Zweli Mkhize said South Africa recorded 1,474 new Covid-19 cases and 95 deaths in the past 24 hours.
This meant that 1,525,648 total infections and 51,110 have been recorded across the country to date.
The new infections came from 33,493 tests, at a positivity rate at 4.4%.
Mkhize said that of the new deaths, 25 were in Gauteng, 21 were in the Free State, 17 were in the Northern Cape, 11 were in the Western Cape, 10 were in Limpopo, six were in KwaZulu-Natal and five were in the Eastern Cape. There were no new cases in Mpumalanga or the North West.
To date, 1,447,503 recoveries have been recorded at a recovery rate of 94.8%.
Mkhize said 138,014 health workers had been vaccinated as of 6.30pm on Thursday.
The minister added that government remains committed to its original plan of vaccinating 40 million people, or 65% of the population, by the end of the year – but manufacturer delays could interrupt the process.
Responding to questions in parliament on Wednesday (10 March), Mkhize said that meeting the vaccination targets depends on vaccine doses being delivered by the manufacturing companies as per an agreed quarterly schedule.
The first target of inoculating 1.5 million people by the end of March is already going to be missed, as there is an insufficient supply of vaccines – while the country is only manging to vaccinate around 10,000 people a day.
Mkhize said the annual target is being reviewed as data comes in.
“We are still targeting many of the vaccines to be administered by the end of the year. As we have indicated, we are mindful that some of the supplies can be delayed by the manufacturing companies.
“And therefore, we will be reviewing as we go to see whether that target needs to be altered or not. But in terms of our original plan, we would like to be able to vaccinate as many of those 40 million people by the end of the year,” he said.
Government has secured a total of 43 million doses through deals with from Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer and the Covax group.
However, just a fraction of these vaccines has been sent to the country, with the manufacturers operating on a quarterly basis for deliveries.
For the first quarter, which ends on 31 March, government has anticipated 500,000 doses of Johnson & Johnson and 600,000 doses from Pfizer. This makes it difficult to track annual targets, the health minister said.
He said that government is expecting a further eight million doses between April and June, which will be used to complete vaccination for healthcare workers and start phase two of the programme which will focus on at-risk groups.
This means that phase 3 of the programme – which focuses on the bulk of the population – will only start sometime between July and September, with a further 11.6 million doses expected.