South Africa to spend USD 480 million World Bank loan on COVID-19 vaccines

South African government will use 480 million US dollars of the World Bank loan to pay for COVID-19 vaccines purchased between December 2020 and June 2021 and other costs associated with the vaccines, a health official said on Thursday.

"The money will pay what we have already used, the rest will be used for logistics costs and management of the vaccines cold chain too," National Department of Health spokesperson Foster Mohale told Xinhua in a phone interview on Thursday, about the loan for South Africa's COVID-19 Emergency Response Project recently approved.

Mohale said 59.8 million doses of vaccines have been delivered to South Africa in almost two years, and the ministry is renegotiating delivery of the remaining 21.98 million vaccines. However, he said the uptake of the vaccines was low.

As of Wednesday, the national tally of COVID-19 reached to over 3.98 million and the death toll was 101,576.

"As we know that the country and global community are not out of the woods yet, this injection of additional financial resources secured from the World Bank will go a long way in protecting the lives and the livelihoods of our people against this life-threatening health challenge," Mohale said.

There was a strong political commitment in South Africa to mobilize financial resources to respond to COVID-19, including for vaccine procurement and deployment, and the project will create an enabling environment that will promote the participation of other donors, multilateral development banks, and United Nations agencies in furthering vaccination efforts in the country, he said.

The official said the vaccine "remains the best effective weapon against COVID-19", and urged citizens to get vaccinated and receive booster doses. (ANI/Xinhua)

( With inputs from ANI )

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