Serum Institute of India refunds South Africa for undelivered Covid-19 vaccines – Times of India

JOHANNESBURG: The Serum Institute of India has totally refunded South Africa for the five hundred,000 doses of the Covid-19 vaccine, which weren’t delivered to the nation after it determined to not use the vaccine as a result of it was not efficient in opposition to a brand new variant of the virus.
1,000,000 doses from the institute, which had already been delivered, have been offered on to different nations within the African Union.
“Treasury has confirmed that the Serum Institute of India has fully refunded us for the remaining 500,000 doses that had not been delivered to South Africa and the money is already in our bank account,” Health Minister Zweli Mkhize stated at a televised media briefing on Thursday.
“I want to clarify this quite clearly, as this now closes the matter of the AstraZeneca vaccine and also we close it without incurring any fruitless and wasteful expenditure,” he stated.
Mkhize stated that there was an enormous concern amongst South Africans that these vaccines would now be wasted.
“But we want to indicate that all of the AstraZeneca vaccines have been salvaged,” he stated.
“The one million doses that we have received have been sold to the African Union platform and have been distributed to many African countries, who have been able now to have access to these vaccines,” Mkhize stated.
The minister defined why different states in Africa may use the five hundred,000 doses of the vaccine, which had been rejected by South Africa.
“The difference between us and some of these countries is that they actually don’t have the same variant as what we have got and therefore they also don’t have evidence in their countries that the AstraZeneca would be a problem.
“So, in these nations we go by the WHO tips that stated it may very well be used, even when there are different variants in different nations,” he said.
Mkhize said South Africa would continue to support AstraZeneca’s efforts and would deal with them again when they could show that they had developed a vaccine with efficacy against the new variant in South Africa.
He also outlined plans for the vaccine rollout in South Africa from other suppliers.
“We have now secured 51 million doses of vaccines with the agreements which have been signed – 31 million from Johnson and Johnson, which is a one-dose vaccine; and 20 million from Pfizer, which is a two-dose vaccine.
“This means that we can now move forward with confidence as we finalise our plans for our mass rollout campaign, which is due to officially begin at the end of phase one on May 17,” he stated.
South Africa began the primary part by vaccinating its healthcare employees. The second part of six months will goal the aged, folks with comorbidities, and employees in important companies, with the remaining of the inhabitants following within the third part.
“If we didn’t have this debacle with the AstraZeneca vaccines, we would have been able to move faster, as we have indicated to the public,” Mkhize stated as he expressed hope that South Africa would obtain herd immunity in opposition to COVID-19 inside a 12 months.