South Africa, which is among world’s top COVID-19 hit
countries, has secured at least 20 million doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech
coronavirus vaccine, the South African Health ministry said on Sunday.

“These vaccines are secured and awaiting
manufacturers to submit final agreements with details of delivery dates and
exact amounts,” Health Minister Zweli Mkhize told media.

Also Read: US detects first cases of South African variant of COVID-19

The announcement comes at the backdrop of country’s mass criticism over low procurement of vaccine doses and lack of COVID combative strategy.

The Pfizer order placed by South Africa will provide 12 million vaccine doses from the WHO-backed Covax facility, around 9 million shots from Johnson & Johnson and 1.5 million AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccines, which makes the secured supply around 20 million.

The South African Health Minister also that arrangements
to meet the storage conditions for the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, which needs to
be kept at -70 degrees Celsius, have been made in country’s facilities.

“We have some capacity, mostly in academic institutions. There are now companies coming forward with storage and transit solutions,” he added.

South Africa has also ordered around 1.5 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines from India, the supplies will be carried out by the Pune-based Serum Institute, followed by the procurement of 500,000 doses in February.

Meanwhile, the country also indicated that it is planning to initiate the inoculation drive against coronavirus in February.

In the phase wise process, South Africa aims to vaccinate 67% of the population, or 40 million people, by the end of the year.

On the other hand, South Africa’s COVID-19 outbreak
has been surged after the nation reported cases of new variant of coronavuirus,
known to be more contagious than the previous one.

So far, the country has recorded more than 1.4 million
coronavirus cases and 45,000 deaths due to COVID-19.