DURBAN: More than 12.1 million South Africans have been vaccinated against Covid-19 and of those, 8.3 million were fully inoculated by Sunday afternoon, says the National Department of Health.
With 39.7 million adults in the country, this means 30% percent of the population has received a vaccine.
A total of 9 419 vaccines were administered in the past 24 hours.
Gauteng is leading the provinces, with the highest number of vaccines administered – 4.4 million. However, it also has the most people – 11. 3 million.
The Western Cape, which has an adult population of almost five million, had administered close to 2.7 million vaccinations. The province has vaccinated the most number of people – 39% of its population.
KwaZulu-Natal, which contributes toward most of the positive Covid-19 cases in South Africa, has administered more than 2.7 million vaccines. Its population is second highest in the country, at 7.2 million adults.
On Sunday, Sandile Tshabalala, the head of the KZN Department of Health, called on the people of KwaZulu-Natal to ignore the widespread fake news and get vaccinated, in order to avoid unnecessary and preventable deaths.
Dr Tshabalala was speaking at a vaccination promotional campaign at UKZN in Pietermaritzburg.
He said that despite 14 295 people having died due to Covid-19-related complications in the province, many people appeared unprepared to take a vaccine that had been found to be safe and effective.
“The truth of the matter is there is a vaccination programme in South Africa, which starts as soon as you are born. You get to be vaccinated from that time on until you are at least 14 years old.
“You get to be vaccinated with different vaccines, which themselves have different things in them and, as such, you are not even aware what is in this vaccine. But today you want to question this vaccine. That is not normal.
“Also, there are preservatives in all these vaccines that we do not question. But this one we want to question.
“The reality of the matter is, if anyone wanted to kill South Africans using a vaccine, they could have achieved that long ago.
“So, it is mere fake news that now there is somebody who want to kill South Africans using any vaccine for that matter. If you’re saying it’s aimed at killing Black people… Everyone across the racial spectrum is getting vaccinated. Then, why would it kill only Black people? It does not make sense. So, there is nothing like that.”
IOL