Johannesburg - Health Minister Zweli Mkhize says 15 388 healthcare workers have been vaccinated in the country since the 80 000 Johnson & Johnson doses arrived last week.
South Africa kicked off its mass vaccination programme last week after 80 000 J&J vaccine doses touched down.
In phase 1 of the vaccination programme, only healthcare workers in the public and private sector are being vaccinated as they are most at risk to Covid-19 infection.
Mkhize said the 15 388 health workers had been vaccinated as of Sunday, 6pm.
In terms of Covid-19 infections, he said there were 1429 new infections, as well as 113 new deaths, which took the country’s death toll since March to 49 053 deaths.
This takes South Africa’s Covid-19 infections to over 1.5 million infections since March.
The number of recoveries in the country stands at over 1.4 million recoveries, which means there is a recovery rate of about 93.8% currently.
Mkhize said they had now tested over 8.8 million people in the private and public sector, with over 24 800 tests conducted in the past 24 hours.
The Eastern Cape province has the most deaths, followed by the Western Cape, KZN and Gauteng.
Of the latest deaths, Mkhize said the majority of the deceased came from the North West province.
Latest deaths by province:
North West - 69 deaths
Gauteng - 17
Free State - 12
Western Cape - 10
Eastern Cape - 2
Northern Cape - 2
KZN - 1
South Africa has procured 9 million vaccine doses from the J&J, as well as 20 million doses from Pfizer have been promised, along with an additional 12 million doses from the COVAX facility.
South Africa also expects vaccine doses through the AU’s African Vaccine Acquisition Task Team facility.
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