South Africa will start offering Pfizer vaccine booster shots against COVID-19 next month, stated a health official on Friday.

Dr Nicolas Crisp, director general at the health ministry, said that the first people eligible for the booster dose will be those aged above 60 years. Experts are currently working to ascertain if the current vaccines will work against the new Omicron variant.

The country had already started offering Johnson & Johnson vaccine doses as boosters to health practitioners last month. A little more than a quarter of the country’s population is fully vaccinated, with the figure among adults being 43%. South Africa aims to vaccinate around 70% of its population by March next year… (NDTV – AFP, December 10, 2021)