South Africa

Johannesburg, Feb 17 (AP-PTI) South Africa is preparing to give its first COVID-19 vaccinations shots of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine still being tested to health care workers this week, the health minister said Tuesday.

The first batch of 80,000 doses of the J&J vaccine, which has not been authorised for general use in South Africa or anywhere else in the world, is expected to arrive in the country imminently and will be administered to health care professionals across the country, Zweli Mkhize told parliament.

ELANDSDOORN, South Africa (AP) — After testing thousands of people for coronavirus, South African nurse Asnath Masango says she can’t wait to get vaccinated.

“So many people, I test them and within days they have passed away,” said Masango. “I want protection.”

C.J. Umunnakwe, a virologist running a lab that has performed more than 40,000 virus tests, says he “wholeheartedly believes in vaccinations. Vaccines save lives.” He plans to talk to those who may be skeptical.

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South Africa’s former president Jacob Zuma did not show up on Monday at an inquiry into corruption during his time in office, despite the country’s top court ordering him to appear.

The inquiry led by Deputy Chief Justice Raymond Zondo is probing allegations of high-level graft during Zuma’s scandal-plagued nine years in power from 2009 to 2018.

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — South Africa is considering giving a COVID-19 vaccine that is still in the testing phase to health workers, after suspending the rollout of another shot that preliminary data indicated may be only minimally effective against the mutated form of the virus dominating the country.

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — South Africa has suspended plans to inoculate its front-line health care workers with the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine after a small clinical trial suggested that it isn’t effective in preventing mild to moderate illness from the variant dominant in the country.

South Africa received its first 1 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine last week and was expected to begin giving jabs to health care workers in mid-February. The disappointing early results indicate that an inoculation drive using the AstraZeneca vaccine may not be useful.

JOHANNESBURG, Feb 1 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Custom officials at South Africa’s main international airport have seized hundreds of thousands of tablets of a drug some people claim could be a remedy against Coronavirus.

The South African Police Service (SAPS) said in a statement that “tablets suspected to be ivermectin” worth six million rand (nearly $400,000) had been seized at Johannesburg’s OR Tambo international airport in the past two weeks.

PRETORIA, January 13. /TASS/: The Russian embassy to Uganda (with dual accreditation in South Sudan) has received a message from Russian nationals Ilya Varlamov and Pyotr Verzilov after their detention in the South Sudanese town of Kapoeta, a spokesperson for the embassy told TASS on Wednesday.

"They have got in touch with us," the Russian diplomat said. "They have not been arrested yet, but just detained. Work is underway."

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — South Africa’s COVID-19 spike has taken the country to more than 1 million confirmed cases on Sunday and President Cyril Ramaphosa called an emergency meeting of the National Coronavirus Command Council.

The country’s new variant of the coronavirus, 501.V2, is more contagious and has quickly become dominant in many areas of the resurgence, according to experts.

JOHANNESBURG, Dec 22 (NNN-Xinhua) — At least five countries have suspended flights from South Africa after a coronavirus variant was recently discovered in the country.

Germany, Turkey, Israel, Switzerland and Saudi Arabia are among the countries that have announced the banning of such flights to prevent the spread of a variant of the SARS-COV-2 virus currently termed 501.V2 Variant. The ban was coming into effect on Monday in most of these countries.

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — South Africa has announced that a new variant of the COVID-19 virus is driving the country’s current resurgence of the disease, which is seeing higher numbers of confirmed cases, hospitalizations and deaths.

The new variant, known as 501.V2, is dominant among new confirmed infections in South Africa, according to health officials and scientists leading the country’s virus strategy.