South Africa aims for 35 million people vaccinated against COVID-19 by Christmas

South Africa’s Police Minister Bheki Cele gestures before receiving a coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccine during a vaccine rollout to over 180,000 members of the South African Police Service (SAPS), in the township of Soweto, South Africa July 5, 2021. (File photo from REUTERS)

JOHANNESBURG — South Africa aims to have given at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine to 35 million of its 60 million population by Christmas, a senior health official said on Wednesday.

“We will be able to have vaccinated – at least one dose – to 35 million people before Christmas. That is the target that we have been set and that we are chasing,” Nicholas Crisp told a parliamentary committee.