Further 3,273 infections added to South Korea’s tally; fully vaccinated travellers in Northern Ireland will no longer need pre-departure test from 4 October
South African state-owned rail company Transnet has launched a “vaccine train” to aid the government’s rollout and administer doses to people living outside big cities.
Just 14% of South Africans are fully vaccinated. AP reports:
Carrying doctors, nurses and, crucially, vaccine doses, it has a mission to bring vaccines closer to people in small towns and poorer parts of South Africa, which has the continent’s highest number of coronavirus infections at more than 2.8 million.
The train is parked at the rail station in Swartkops, a small town on the country’s south coast, the first stop on a three-month journey through the poor Eastern Cape province. It will stay for about two weeks at a time at seven stations in the province to vaccinate as many people as possible.
The initiative aims to meet head-on two of the government’s biggest challenges: getting doses out beyond big cities to areas where health care facilities are limited and trying to convince hesitant people in those areas to get vaccine shots.
The train, named Transvaco, can hold up to 108,000 vaccine doses in ultra-cold refrigerators. It has nine coaches, including accommodation coaches and a kitchen and dining area for the staff, a vaccination area and consulting rooms.
India will export 8m vaccine doses abroad by the end of October, a ministry official has announced as the country resumed exports.
Most of the 8m doses of the Johnson & Johnson single-shot vaccine will be sent to Asia-Pacific countries, foreign secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla said in a statement reported by AFP.
This would be ready by the end of October. This is an immediate delivery, from the Quad into the Indo-Pacific region,” Shringla told reporters.
