South Africa's Health Minister Zweli Mkhize |
With 101,590 confirmed COVID 19 cases and death toll at
1,991 according to the latest official update released on Tuesday (the highest
in Africa), South Africa is set to roll out the first coronavirus vaccine trial
in Africa this week.
The vaccine, known as ChAdOx1 nCoV-19, was developed by the
Oxford Jenner Institute and it is already being evaluated in Britain, where
4,000 participants have signed up for the trial.
South Africa has set out to vaccinate 2,000 people with the
vaccine. Fifty of the candidates have HIV.
“We began screening participants for the South African
Oxford 1 Covid-19 vaccine trial last week, and the first participants will be
vaccinated this week,” University of Witwatersrand (Wits) vaccinology professor
Shabir Madhi told a virtual press conference.
Wits is collaborating with the University of Oxford and the
Oxford Jenner Institute on the South African trial.
Brazil is planning its own pilot, while the United States is
preparing to test another vaccine in a mass trial of up to 30,000 participants,
AFP reports.
“As we enter winter in South Africa and pressure increases
on public hospitals, now more than ever we need a vaccine to prevent infection
by COVID-19,” Madhi said, describing the vaccine trial as a “landmark moment”.
Health Minister Zweli Mkhize echoed Madhi’s concerns, warning
that South Africa was going through a “devastating storm” expected to peak
“during the cold winter months”.
At the opening of a field hospital in the Eastern Cape
province, Mkhize said more than half of South Africa’s population may be
infected with the deadly virus.
“Our scientific estimation is that 60 to 70 percent of our
population may be infected by coronavirus,” the minister said at the launch on
Tuesday, adding that hospitalisation rates remained lower than anticipated.
Over 3,500 doctors and nurses have contracted COVID-19 since
the start of the pandemic, and at least 34 have succumbed to the respiratory
disease.
While South Africa prepares for its coronavirus vaccination
trial, health officials have also pegged high hopes on dexamethasone, a generic
anti-inflammatory drug found to reduce mortality among ventilated patients.
Records released show that South Africa has so far completed
1,353,176 tests, out of which 25,116 new tests were conducted in the past 24
hours.
It took the country 14 days to double the number of
confirmed cases from 50,000 to 101,590, compared with 94 days during which the
number of cases doubled and rose to 50,000 from March 5 to June 8.
The doubling of coronavirus cases in 14 days was seen as a
result of rise in mass community testing.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Disclaimer: Comment expressed do not reflect the opinion of African Parliamentary News