EFF to picket at Sahpra for approval of Sputnik V, Sinovac vaccines

EFF leader Julius Malema said the party will picket next week Friday. 

“After picketing there next Friday they’ve got seven days to approve the Russian vaccine and the Chinese vaccine. Failure to do so we are going to sleep outside the home of the CEO of Sahpra until they protect lives,” he told the EFF’s Youth Day event on Wednesday.

“It is personal like that. We are going to her house, we want her to approve Sputnik and Chinese vaccines to add on what we have now. If we die, let's die because we are going to die anyway.” 

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The call by the EFF comes after the decision by the FDA that two batches of the Johnson & Johnson vaccines, manufactured at the Baltimore plant in the US, be destroyed due to contamination. 

This leaves South Africa short of two million doses, resulting in an further delay to the country’s vaccination programme. 

This is not the first delay to the country’s vaccination efforts. 

Earlier this year, the first batch of Astra-Zeneca vaccines was sold to the Africa Union (AU) after inoculations were found to be 20% effective against a Covid-19 variant that was first detected in South Africa. 

The country is currently only administering the Pfizer vaccine.