JOHANNESBURG (AP) — The brisk pace at the Houghton mosque COVID-19 vaccination centre is seeing 700 people per day getting shots and is expected to soon reach 1,000 a day.
“This is exciting! We’re vaccinating more people than we expected,” said Chairman of the Muslim Association of South Africa Yaseen Theba a day after the vaccination centre opened last week. “We created this drive-thru site to accommodate as many people as possible, in a situation where they are comfortable. And it’s working! We’ll keep it going as long a people need to get vaccinated.”
Hitting its stride after a faltering start, South Africa’s mass vaccination drive gave jabs to 220,000 people a day last week and is accelerating toward the goal of 300,000 per day. With large deliveries of doses arriving and some vaccines being assembled here, South Africa appears on track to inoculate about 35 million of its 60 million people by the end of the year and 40 million by February.
More than 7.7 million South Africans have received at least one dose, with more than 100,000 fully vaccinated, representing 1.6 per cent of the population, according to official figures. Across Africa, less than 1.5 per cent of the continent’s 1.3 billion people have been fully vaccinated, according to the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
After starting with just a dozen vaccination sites, South Africa now has more than 3,000 including government and private hospitals, pharmacies, mines, factories, churches and mosques.
South Africa now appears to have an adequate supply of doses. More than 5.7 million doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine have arrived this week from the United States (US), part of President Joe Biden’s distribution of more than 110 million surplus doses to more than 60 countries. South Africa has also purchased more than 40 million Pfizer/BioNTech doses, which are being delivered in regular shipments, and 30 million Johnson & Johnson doses.
