By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
@GettyImages.
The Department of Health says 300,000 doses of the Johnson & Johnson (J&J) vaccine have been cleared for shipping to South Africa “as a matter of extreme urgency” from the US.
The statement comes after the US Food and Drug Administration announced that 60 million doses of the J&J vaccines, manufactured in Baltimore, be destroyed over fears that the vaccines may have been contaminated at the plant.
Currently, South Africa has two million J&J vaccines on hold.
“The vaccines awaiting distribution from the Gqeberha plant need further assessment by Sahpra [South African Health Products Regulatory Authority] and Sahpra will soon advise if they are suitable for use in South Africa. There is now a real possibility that they may not be, however this is for the regulator to rule on,” the department said on Friday evening.
“Furthermore, the FDA announced that, after careful evaluation of these doses, they approved an extension of the expiry date after determining that the vaccine can be stored in 2-8 degrees celsius [normal bar fridge] for four-and-a-half months instead of three months.”
The FDA is still evaluating more J&J batches for safety and department said it was “hoping that this will make more doses of Johnson & Johnson available”.
.@HealthZA notes the statement issued by the US FDA in relation to the doses of JnJ vaccines produced at the Emergent BioSolutions Plant in Baltimore, USA.The FDA has been investigating the plant following revelations that some of the batches may have been contaminated. pic.twitter.com/hYwbfxlFWD
— Department of Health (@HealthZA) June 11, 2021
Meanwhile the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) said on Friday night, South Africa recorded 8,021 new Covid-19 cases in the past 24 hours.
The 8,021 new infections came at a positivity rate of 16.5%, and take the total number of laboratory-confirmed cases across SA to 1,730,106 since the outbreak of the coronavirus in SA in March last year.
“The majority of new cases today are from the Gauteng province (60%), followed by the Western Cape (9%) province,” the institute said.
This translated to 4,809 cases in Gauteng and 748 in the Western Cape. The only other province to have more than 500 cases in the past 24 hours was the North West, with 508 confirmed infections.
The NICD said there was an increase of 1,009 hospital admissions, meaning that there are now 7,467 people in hospital across SA with Covid-19.
There were also 182 in-hospital deaths reported in the past 24 hours, taking the total number of in-hospital fatalities to 57,591.