South Africa is going with the COVAX global COVID-19 vaccine distribution scheme, with a committed purchase for 10% of its population of 58 million, reports IoL, citing a Reuters 'exclusive' report.
Separately, Daily Maverick reported that China will 'actively consider' providing its COVID-19 vaccines directly to SA and other African countries. This would be in addition to China’s support for COVAX, the global partnership between developed and developing countries to finance and get vaccines to poorer countries as soon as possible.
Reuters reported that the facility, which is about to be signed, would give SA an early batch of vaccines.
SA will make a R500m (or $33m) payment to help fund production of vaccines that will be made available via COVAX, Finance Minister Tito Mboweni said earlier on Tuesday, 24 November. Mboweni said that a further R4.5bn could be necessary to procure vaccines in future, without specifying how it would be spent.
As an upper middle income country, SA does not qualify for subsidised vaccines under COVAX, unlike many other African countries. SA had to weigh the benefits of signing up to the scheme versus agreeing bilateral deals with major pharmaceutical companies, or waiting to see which vaccines proved the most effective in late-stage clinical trials, an official close to the government's vaccine discussions told Reuters.
[link url="https://www.iol.co.za/news/south-africa/gauteng/south-africa-is-going-for-covax-vaccine-scheme-for-10-of-population-1e4862c6-5bba-5874-83e2-439033c52236"]Full IoL report[/link]
[link url="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2020-11-24-china-considers-providing-covid-19-vaccines-to-sa-and-africa/"]Full Daily Maverick report[/link]