South Africa Launches Janssen COVID-19 Vaccination Program

The South African government outlined the Mpumalanga provincial COVID-19 vaccine rollout plan to the Portfolio Committee on Health on February 18, 2021. The Head of Department, Dr. Savera Mohangi, said in a government press release, 'the (Janssen COVID-19) vaccination program will have to be implemented in the two hospitals over a maximum of two weeks.'

'A team of 42 vaccinators will rotate between the two facilities, which in turn will be overseen by researchers from Mzansi Ethical Research Centre. And the Mzansi Ethical Research Centre has been nominated to oversee the vaccination process in Mpumalanga.

South Africa had secured 500,000 doses of the vaccine from Johnson & Johnson - Janssen. The first batch of 80,000 vaccine doses arrived in South Africa on February 16, 2021. The South African Health Products Regulatory Authority (SAHPRA) approved the vaccine for the program on February 15th, while it processes the full licensing.

The Janssen COVID-19 experimental vaccine leverages Janssen's AdVac and PER.C6 technologies. These are the same technologies Janssen used to develop the Ebola vaccine, Ad26.ZEBOV.