Pfizer is demanding that SA’s Health and Finance Ministers personally sign a Covid-19 vaccine supply agreement so that it is indemnified from any claims over the shot made against it in the country.

A Business Day report notes the demand is contained in a 24 March letter from Health Minister Zweli Mkhize to his Finance counterpart Tito Mboweni.

Pfizer was not satisfied by assurances that the signature of the country’s Health DG is sufficient to guarantee the indemnity, Mkhize said. The agreement is for the supply of 20m doses of the vaccine made by Pfizer and BioNTech.

The ministerial signatures will give Pfizer the ‘assurance that the terms of the indemnity clause are acknowledged by government and, as such, any liability that may be established will be covered by the fiscus’, Mkhize wrote.

‘You will no doubt agree with me that there is mounting pressure and we can no longer justify publicly any further delays.’

The demand is the last that Pfizer will make and, once indemnity is signed, vaccines would begin to arrive within two weeks, Mkhize said.

Full Business Day report (subscription needed)

President Cyril Ramaphosa announced yesterday that SA will have access to 30m Johnson & Johnson (J&J) Covid-19 vaccines, while more than 200m doses will be produced for Africa.

Ramaphosa said J&J signed off on the deal with Aspen Pharmacare this week. The Mercury reports the vaccines will be manufactured at the Aspen facility in the Eastern Cape. Ramaphosa said the first few J&J vaccines would come out of the facility in the coming weeks.

‘Availability is a challenge that all countries in the world are going through. A number of countries in Africa thought that they would start earlier, but availability is a major challenge.’

He added that from April we should see an acceleration in the roll-out of vaccines throughout the country. The report says earlier in the day, Ramaphosa led a government delegation on an oversight visit to Aspen’s new facility.

Full report in The Mercury (subscription needed)