The Serum Institute of India which is based in Pune has refunded the cost of 5,00,000 doses of undelivered AstraZeneca vaccines to South Africa. The inefficiency of these vaccines has led to the decision of returning them. Millions of doses of vaccines from the institute have been sold to the African Union, which were already delivered. 

 On Thursday, Health Minister Zweli Mkhize in a media briefing said that the Serum Institute of India has refunded them the doses of the remaining vaccines which were not delivered to South Africa. The confirmation has been given by the treasury. The money has been credited to their bank account. He further added that the matter surrounding AstraZeneca closes without sustaining any kind of losses. 

Concerns about the vaccines is prevalent among the South Africans since it has become obsolete, says Mkhize. But there is scope as vaccines have been recovered. Doses of one million AstraZeneca which were earlier received, are now being delivered in all African countries, says the Health Minister. 

He also explains the fact that the doses can be used by these countries as the new variant is non-existent over there. Also, there is no hardcore proof that the vaccine will become a huge problem. 

He said that according to WHO guidelines in third world countries like in Africa, these vaccines can be used even if there were other variants.

Mkhize says that AstraZeneca's effort would continue to be supported by South Africa shortly. They are going to rework the existing vaccine to make it more efficient against the new variant. He has also laid out the plan for the roll-out of the vaccines from various suppliers.

They have signed the agreement with suppliers like Pfizer for 20 million which is a two-dose vaccine and Johnson and Johnson for 31 million which is a one-dose vaccine. So in total, they have secured 51 million doses of vaccines.

He added that they can now provide vaccines on a mass roll-out campaign which will officially begin from May 17 onwards.

Out of all the countries, South Africa is among the first ones to start the first phase of vaccination of health workers. In its second phase, they will vaccinate the senior citizens, disabled people and workers from essential services in 6 months. The vaccination drive of the common citizens will begin in the third phase.

The South African Health minister expressed that if it weren't for the failure of AstraZeneca, they would have been able to move faster with the vaccination drive. He also hopes that all the citizens will be immunized within the year's time.