Cape Town - The South African Health Products Regulatory Authority (Sahpra) has approved the use of China’s Sinovac vaccine in the fight against Covid-19.
The EFF has been pushing the regulatory authority to register Sinovac and Sputnik to be used in the country.
South Africa has been using the Johnson & Johnson vaccine since the rollout of vaccines started.
On Saturday, Sahpra announced that it would allow Sinovac to be used and that it will for now be used for people aged between 18 and 59 years old.
However, the regulatory authority said the use of the vaccine will come with conditions that would have to be met by Sinovac.
“CoronaVac is an inactivated whole virion vaccine derived from the SARS-CoV-2 virus (CZ02 strain). Each dose contains 600 SU of inactivated SARS-CoV-2 virus as the antigen. CoronaVac is indicated for active immunisation in individuals aged between 18 and 59 years against Covid-19, the disease caused by SARS-CoV-2 virus,” said Sahpra in a statement.
“The vaccine is administered as two doses of 0,5ml, given intramuscularly, with the second dose administered between 14 and 28 days after the first dose,” it added.
IOL