Deputy President David Mabuza has reiterated government\u2019s stance to ramp up efforts for the country to produce its own lifesaving vaccines, as the world battles COVID-19.<\/p>\n
Mabuza conducted an oversight visit at the Biovac Institute in Midrand, Gauteng, on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Biovac is a bio-pharmaceutical company, in partnership with government and the private sector. Established in 2003, with its headquarters in Cape Town, the company was set up to establish local vaccine manufacturing capability for the provision of vaccines for national health management and security.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe do currently manufacture vaccines. Almost 80% of the vaccines we use are manufactured in Cape Town, and then we distribute. But we want to increase this capacity,\u201d said Mabuza.<\/p>\n
The company is the storage centre for the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, which is currently reserved for healthcare workers across the country following a decision by the Inter-Ministerial Committee on COVID-19 Vaccines.<\/p>\n
The Deputy President, who chairs the Inter-Ministerial Committee (IMC), said after his visit to Biovac that government is determined to improve the country\u2019s vaccine manufacturing capabilities.<\/p>\n
The second batch of the single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine landed at OR Tambo International Airport from Belgium on Saturday.<\/p>\n
The Deputy Minister believes that the country will not need another storage facility.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverything that will come in will be stored here, and will go straight to vaccination sites from here,\u201d he said, speaking from outside the institute\u2019s cold room.<\/p>\n
Mabuza said he every confidence in Biovac to safely store the vaccine. He assured that he will get vaccinated when his turn comes.<\/p>\n
Corruption<\/strong> <\/p>\n Meanwhile, Mabuza assured the public that measures have been taken to curb corruption in the roll out of vaccines.<\/p>\n \u201cThe IMC [on vaccines] is taking care of all the processes to ensure there\u2019s no corruption,\u201d the Deputy President said.<\/p>\n Acting Minister in the Presidency, Khumbudzo Ntshavheni, echoed the Deputy Minister\u2019s words, saying government has work streams involving anti-corruption and risk management to deal with any malfeasance that may arise.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat we\u2019re focusing on is to control and prevent [corruption] rather than being reactive. We\u2019re being proactive this time around and those are the things we\u2019re working on in the IMC,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n With the private sector wanting to procure its own vaccines, Health Deputy Minister Joe Phaahla said they have found that vaccine manufacturers prefer to work with governments. <\/p>\n \u201cThe manufacturers themselves are comfortable with that kind of arrangement.\u201d<\/p>\n Ensuring vaccine integrity<\/strong><\/p>\n Biovac CEO, Dr Morena Makhoana, assured that the integrity of vaccines will be safeguarded, whether the vaccines are in a truck or warehouse.<\/p>\n \u201cThat whole value chain has to be maintained and that is what our licence requires, whether there are subcontractors that are used or whether we use our own trucks.<\/p>\n \u201cThe whole system has to have integrity and ultimately\u2026 Biovac then takes ownership,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, the Deputy President will be visiting various sites once government effectively rolls out the inoculation programme in the country. \u2013 SAnews.gov.za<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Deputy President David Mabuza has reiterated government\u2019s stance to ramp up efforts for the country to produce its own lifesaving vaccines, as the world battles COVID-19. Mabuza conducted an oversight visit at the Biovac Institute in Midrand, Gauteng, on Tuesday. Biovac is a bio-pharmaceutical company, in partnership with government and the private sector. Established in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[38678],"class_list":{"0":"post-182190","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-sanews","8":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182190","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=182190"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182190\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=182190"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=182190"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=182190"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}