By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
The National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD), reports 1,094 new COVID-19 cases that have been identified in South Africa, which brings the total number of laboratory-confirmed cases to 3,642,925.
The majority of new cases today are from Gauteng (44%), followed by Western Cape (16%). Kwa-Zulu Natal accounted for 13%; Mpumalanga accounted for 10%; North West accounted for 6%; Free State and Limpopo each accounted for 4% respectively; Eastern Cape accounted for 3%; and Northern Cape accounted for 1% of today’s new cases.
This increase represents a 6.9% positivity rate.
The proportion of positive new cases/total new tested today is 6.9%, which is lower than yesterday (8.1%). The 7-day average is 8.2% today, which is lower than yesterday (8.3%).
Due to the ongoing audit exercise by the National Department of Health (NDoH), there may be a backlog of COVID-19 mortality cases reported. Today, the NDoH reports 257 deaths and of these, 3 occurred in the past 24 – 48 hours. This brings the total fatalities to 97,250 to date.
Meanwhile President Cyril Ramaphosa has welcomed the oversight visit by the World Health Organisation as an opportunity to profile the depth of intellectual and technological capacity on the African continent, and the integrity with which, intellectual property is being leveraged to enable vaccine production on the continent.
The President met with World Health Organisation (WHO) Director-General, Dr Tedros Ghebreyesus,in Cape Town on Friday, to discuss progress in making Africa self-sufficient in the production of COVID-19 vaccines and related treatments.
Dr Ghebreyesus and the Belgian Minister of Development Cooperation Meryame Kitir visited the country on a two-day visit to various vaccine-related sites around Cape Town, hosted by the Department of Science and Innovation, the Department of Health and other partners.
The two-day visit served to showcase South Africa’s capacity and infrastructure in the development of vaccines for current and potentially new strains of COVID-19, and to highlight how manufacturing in South Africa is a critical contribution to the continent’s response to COVID-19.
The Director-General paid a visit to Ramaphosa at the President’s official residence at Genadendal to engage him in his capacity as the African Union (AU) COVID-19 Champion.
“Dr Tedros commended South Africa’s capability in this regard and welcomed Ramaphosa’s continued commitment, as AU COVID-19 Champion, to vaccine equity at the global level, and to securing vaccines for Africa as the continent with the least access to this form of protection,” the Presidency said.
The visit by Dr Tedros and Kitir is focused on the mRNA vaccine technology transfer hub and ongoing vaccination initiatives, including the mRNA Hub at Afrigen, genomic sequencing at the Biomedical Research Institute and the fill and finish facility at Biovac.