South Africa: Ramaohosa to personally receive first consignment of COVID-19 vaccine

Cyril Ramaphosa, the President of South Africa and David Mabuza, the Deputy President would receive the first consignment of one million COVID-19 from the Serum Institute of India (SII) on Monday, at OR Tambo International Airport, according to a report by All Africa.

The first shipment of the Oxford University-AstraZeneca vaccine from SII left the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport, India on Sunday.

As reported Ramaphosa and Mabuza would be joined by Zweli Mkhize, the Health Minister, Khumbudzo Ntshavheni, Acting Minister in the Presidency, Jaideep Sarkar, High Commissioner of the Republic of India, and Morena Makhoana, the Chief Executive Officer of Biovac.

Biovac, as reported is a biopharmaceutical company formed in 2003 in collaboration with private investors and the government to establish the capability of local vaccine manufacturing. The company would play a pivot role in assuring the storage of the vaccine.

As stated by the Presidency, "Biovac will play an important role in the quality assurance, warehousing and distribution of COVID-19 vaccines. High Commissioner Sarkar will represent India as the country of origin of the first vaccine to be rolled out in South Africa. The Serum Institute of India has been licensed to produce a vaccine that has been developed by the multinational pharmaceutical and bio pharmaceutical company, AstraZeneca, in collaboration with the University of Oxford".

The first vaccination phase would aim to vaccine the frontline workers across the country. It would include all the medical attendants including all in the department from doctors to cleaners.