The second wave of coronavirus has had a deep impact on South Africa and now it hopes to obtain its first vaccine doses next month,  the health minister announced on Sunday, reported AFP. 

The South African government has been criticised, recently, particularly by health experts, over delay in starting a programme of inoculation against COVID-19.

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Health Minister Dr Zweli Mkhize told a news conference ,”We are targeting February,”  while cautioning that before anything like that can happen, negotiations must be done with vaccine making companies, including Pfizer, Moderna and AstraZeneca and Russian and Chinese laboratories.

The administration plans to seek help from private sector as well as from the country’s main health insurers, to finance its coronavirus vaccine programme.

South Africa is also participating in Covax, the WHO’s mechanism for the equitable distribution of vaccine across the globe.

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The government paid a deposit of 15.8 million euros to enter Covax, last week.

However, South Africa, being the worst-hit country in the African continent, does not expect to receive the first doses of the coronavirus vaccine under that programme anytime soon.

The minister said, “It is clear that the second wave that we are going through is affecting us to levels, which are even higher than in the earlier stage.”

“The only way to deal with COVID-19 not only in South Africa but throughout the world is the provision of the immunity through vaccination,” Mkhize added.

To achieve sufficient collective immunity to stop the spread of the virus, South Africa’s primary goal is to vaccinate 67% of its population of 59 million people.

South Africa registered a record 18,000 new cases in 24 hours, on December 31, 2020.

It is also the first African nation to top 1 million registered COVID-19 cases.