The South African Health Products Authority (SAHPRA) approved the COVID-19 vaccine made by China's Sinovac on Saturday.
"The South African Health Products Regulatory Authority (SAHPRA) has authorised the CoronaVac COVID-19 vaccine, manufactured by Sinovac Life Sciences Co., and imported by Curanto Pharma (Pty) Ltd. The authorisation was done in terms of Section 21 of the Medicines and Related Substance Act 101 of 1965, a mechanism in the Medicines Act that enables emergency use access and also enables SAHPRA to authorise a medicine subject to certain conditions," SAHPRA said in a statement.
The two-dose vaccine is best administered to people aged between 18 and 59 years, the statement added.
In June, CoronaVac was validated by the World Health Organisation for emergency use in other countries.
On July 3, South Africa hit a record of 24,000 new COVID-19 cases in one day bringing the total number of cases to over 2 million. The country is currently seeing a third wave of infections and President Cyril Ramaphosa last Sunday announced new lockdown measures.
Over 5% of South Africans have received at least 1 dose of the COVID-19 vaccines and only 0.8% both. The country's slow vaccination rate is partially blamed on the fact that they previously had to destroy 2 million contaminated Johnson & Johnson doses.
Russia recorded 24,439 new coronavirus cases in 24 hours, bringing cumulative total to 5,585,799, the federal response centre said Saturday.
The largest number of new cases — 7,447 — was registered in Moscow, followed by 2,596 cases in the Moscow region and 1,733 in St. Petersburg.
In the same 24 hours, 697 deaths of people who had COVID-19 were recorded, which brings the cumulative total to 137,262. Over the same period, 17,899 people were discharged with full recovery across Russia, which brings the cumulative total to 5,053,417.
"It is feared that we are on the way to a fifth wave throughout the country," Rouhani said.
Bharat Biotech, an Indian pharmaceutical company, claimed that Covaxin was demonstrated to have 77.8% efficacy against COVID19 patients in the final analysis of the vaccine’s phase 3 clinical trials.
Bharat Biotech added that Covaxin also demonstrated 93.4% effectiveness against severe symptomatic Covid-19 cases.
India has confirmed 44,111 new cases of the coronavirus over the past 24 hours, with the total number of those infected having reached 30,502,362, the country's Ministry of Health and Family Welfare said on Saturday.
The death toll from the disease has reached 401,050 people, with 738 new fatalities being recorded over the past day.
More than 29.6 million people have recovered in India since the start of the outbreak.
A day earlier, the country confirmed 46,617 new coronavirus cases, with 853 fatalities.
The number of people diagnosed with COVID-19 in South Africa has increased by 24,720 within the past 24 hours, thus surpassing 2 million, the national Department of Health said.
The death toll from the coronavirus in South Africa currently stands at 61,332 people, the ministry said on late Friday.
More than 1.7 million people have recovered from COVID-19 in South Africa since the start of the outbreak.
