South Africa opens jabs to all adults to accelerate campaign

FILE PIC: Faced with slowing numbers of people getting COVID-19 vaccinations, South Africa has opened eligibility to all adults to step up the volume of inoculations as it battles a surge in the disease driven by the delta variant. /AFP

Faced with slowing numbers of people getting COVID-19 vaccinations, South Africa has opened eligibility to all adults to step up the volume of inoculations as it battles a surge in the disease driven by the delta variant.

The country on Friday started offering shots to everyone aged 18 and older as the volume of shots given per day has stalled even though vaccines are now more widely available.

Less than 200,000 jabs are being given per day, down from 250,000 earlier this month and significantly lower than the target of 300,000 that the government had hoped to achieve by this time.

To boost the flagging numbers health officials decided to offer jabs to the younger adults immediately, rather than waiting until September as had been planned earlier.

The vaccination drive comes as the country is battling a resurgence of COVID-19.

In the last 24 hours, South Africa has recorded more than 13,000 new COVID-19 infections, including 317 deaths.

Nearly 80,000 people in South Africa have died from the disease in the pandemic, according to official figures, but the actual number of deaths from COVID-19 is estimated to be nearly three times that amount, according to statistics showing the country's average death rates.

South Africa has by far the largest burden of COVID-19 in Africa. Its 2.6 million confirmed cases of the disease is about 35 percent of the 7.4 million reported by all Africa's 54 countries, even though South Africa's 60 million people make up just 4.6 percent of the continent's 1.3 billion people.

(With input from agencies)