By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
Minister of Health Dr Zweli Mkhize said in a statement the cumulative number of COVID-19 cases for South Africa is 1 556 242.
This is an increase of 1 267 new cases identified and the number of tests conducted to date is 10 086 459. Of these 30 560 tests were completed since the last report.
Mkhize said a further 53 more COVID-19 related deaths have been reported: Eastern Cape 0, Free State 12, Gauteng 11, Kwa-Zulu Natal 2, Limpopo 2, Mpumalanga 0, North West 0, Northern Cape 10 and Western Cape 16, which brings the total to 53 226 deaths.
The minister added that the cumulative recoveries today stand at 1 481 637, representing a recovery rate of 95%.
Vaccination Rollout
The number of health care workers vaccinated under the Sisonke Protocol is 288 368 as reported at 18:30 today.
Meanwhile Russia’s Sputnik V shot is less effective against the South African COVID-19 variant but still does better than other vaccines, the lead scientist behind it was quoted as saying on Friday.
“With regards to the ‘South African’ variant, the effectiveness of the antibodies produced by Sputnik V, like all other vaccines, against it declines, “Alexander Gintsburg said in a interview with the Interfax news agency.
He said that Sputnik V was tested against the British and South African variants, as well as the original strain, first detected in China’s Wuhan province, by laboratories in the United States. The labs used blood samples collected from people vaccinated with Sputnik V in Argentina, Gintsburg said.
Underlining that Russian researchers played no part in the lab tests, Gintsburg said that the results in trials of Sputnik V against the Wuhan strain confirmed what his team at Moscow’s Gamaleya Institute found.
It has also been shown that of all the vaccines currently in use in the world, Sputnik V… is best at neutralising the ‘British’ variant well,” Gintsburg said.
Though the antibody response against the South African variant was less intense, the decline was significantly smaller than the drop other vaccines showed, Gintsburg was cited as saying.