South Africa’s Deputy Minister of International Relations and Co-operation, Candith Mashego-Dlamini is travelling to West Africa this week to hand over vaccines, the department said in a statement.
The Deputy Minister will travel to Liberia and Sierra Leone to hand over vaccines from 26-30 September 2022.
The government of South Africa has, through the African Renaissance Fund (ARF), signed an agreement with the African Vaccination Acquisition Trust (AVAT) to contribute a total of 2 030 400 doses of the Johnson & Johnson Covid-19 vaccine to African countries.
AVAT was formed following the establishment of the African Union (AU)’s Covid-19 African Vaccination Acquisition Task Team (AVATT) in November 2020 by President Cyril Ramaphosa as the then Chairperson of the AU.
The contribution which will be made to the people of Liberia by the South African government was produced at the giant pharmaceutical manufacturing plant in Gqerbeha, South Africa, operated by Aspen Pharma.
South Africa and Liberia enjoy strong bilateral relations.
South Africa says that it hope that its contribution of 79 200 doses of the Covid-19 J&J vaccines will deepen the mutually beneficial cooperation with Liberia.
Sierra Leone and Liberia reported just under 8 000 confirmed cases of Covid-19, respectively, according to real-time tracking website Worldometer.
South Africa remains the epicentre of the Covid-19 pandemic on the continent, surpassing over four million reported Covid-19 cases since March 2020 and over 100 000 deaths.
IOL