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Africa: Why South Africa Is Not Getting the New Bivalent SARS-CoV-2 Vaccines
spotlight, 13 February 2023
The Department of Health is not planning to buy the new COVID-19 bivalent booster vaccines, specifically tailored to target Omicron variants, anytime soon. Read more »
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The Conversation Africa, 25 January 2023
By almost any measure, the vaccination campaign against SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, has been a global success. Read more »
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The Conversation Africa, 11 January 2023
Vaccines have played a major role in mitigating the harms of the COVID pandemic since their rollout began just over two years ago. They're estimated to have saved tens of millions… Read more »
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South Africa: Covid - Vaccine Drive Is Running Out of Steam and People Are Dying
GroundUp, 14 November 2022
Vaccination still helps prevent serious illness and death Read more »
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Africa: Covid Vaccines - an Annual Booster Like the Flu Shot Could Be the Way Forward
The Conversation Africa, 24 October 2022
By now more than 70% of the UK population have received a third COVID vaccination, or a booster. Many people who are older or at higher risk from COVID have had a fourth or even a… Read more »
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Africa: Better Covid Vaccines Are On the Way. What Do They Do? And What Technology Might We See in Future?
The Conversation Africa, 4 September 2022
Regulators in Australia and the United States last week approved Omicron-specific boosters, following approval in the United Kingdom in mid-August. Read more »
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Africa: Covid Vaccine - How the New 'Bivalent' Booster Will Target Omicron
The Conversation Africa, 17 August 2022
The UK's Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) has approved a bivalent COVID booster vaccine, making it the first country in the world to do so. Read more »
South Africa Gives Covid-19 Vaccine Boosters a Miss - For Now
South Africa's department of health is not planning to buy the Covid-19 bivalent vaccine boosters specifically tailored to target Omicron variants soon, Adele Baleta writes for Spotlight. Instead, people in South Africa will continue to be offered the Pfizer-BioNtech and Johnson and Johnson (J&J) booster doses.
The bivalent boosters include a component of the original Covid-19 strain to provide broad protection, and a component of the omicron variant to target subvariants.
South Africans over 60 years of age, and who have comorbidities, are urged to get their booster shots. South Africa was the hardest hit country in Africa with over 4 million reported cases and 103,000 deaths.
InFocus
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Pfizer and BioNTech have reached an agreement with a South African company to produce their COVID-19 vaccine for distribution in Africa, Voice of America reports. The Biovac ... Read more »
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Health Minister Zweli Mkhize has said that the country's vaccination programme reached a welcomed milestone with the arrival of 325,260 doses of the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine ... Read more »
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Speaking at the G7 Leaders' Summit, President Cyril Ramaphosa has called on all G7 members to support the waiver of intellectual property rights on Covid19 vaccines, and engage in ... Read more »
A colorised scanning electron micrograph of a cell (blue) infected with a variant strain of SARS-CoV-2 virus particles (UK B.1.1.7; purple), isolated from a patient sample. Image captured at the NIAID Integrated Research Facility (IRF) in Fort Detrick, Maryland.
