Cape Town – A huge chunk of South Africa’s budget for the Covid-19 vaccine rollout programme will be spent on needles, syringes and paying staff.

This was said by Health Minister Zweli Mkhize during an interview on SABC’s Morning Live on Monday morning.

“The bigger cost in this programme isn’t going to come from the cost of transportation, it’s going to come from the cost of administration. The use of swabs, the needles, the syringe, the persons who will be doing the administering, that’s going to be an additional price that we going to have to bring in.

“At the moment we estimated that just the cost of syringes, swabs, and administering could come close to R60. So that figure depends on whether you get a private administrator or you would want it to be administered by the government department,” he said.

Mkhize said government was currently finalising the cost of transport and logistics.

“The requirements are not the same if you got the AstraZeneca, the requirements are not as onerous as if you were to get the Pfizer vaccine that is being worked on, depending on which one will be arriving.”

The minister gave the assurance 1 million doses of Covid-19 vaccines would arrive on our shores this week.

In anticipation of the world needing syringes and vaccines to successfully carry out Covid-19 vaccine rollout programmes, the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) announced it has stockpiled over half a billion syringes.

Unicef is also buying 5 million safety boxes to dispose of used syringes and needles, thus preventing the risk of needle stick injuries and blood borne diseases.

Durban – One person has been arrested and police are pursuing a group of other people who went on the rampage in the Durban city on Monday, looting and setting shops alight.

According to police, the drama began after a group of about 30 people at King DiniZulu Park indicating that they wanted to march to the city hall to hand over a memorandum.

“Police informed them that they would not be allowed to march. Whilst this was happening, another group converged in the city and began looting shops,” police spokesman, Colonel Jay Naicker said.

He said reports were received of two shops as well as a stall belonging to a street vendor that were set alight.

“Police officers from Durban Central and Metro police responded. They pursed the group and one suspect was arrested. He attempted to stab police officers during the arrest but was quickly subdued without any injury to any of the arresting officers. Some stolen items were recovered from the arrested suspects,” he said.

It was not known what was behind Monday’s mob action or if it was linked to growing anti-foreigner sentiment by some groups that have carried out similar tactics in the past.

Firefighter were called in to extinguish the blaze to the shops that were set alight by, according to the Durban Metro Police, a form of accelerant.

Naicker said n operation was still ongoing to identify and arrest the other perpetrators.

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