South Africa has now crossed the 15 million mark for the number of COVID-19 doses administered.
This comes after 248 236 jabs were given in the past 24 hours, pushing the total to 15 188 787.
Meanwhile, there are now 7 473 903 fully vaccinated adults, of which 133 719 either received a single-dose Johnson & Johnson or the second shot of the Pfizer jab on Tuesday.
In addition, the Health Department statistics show that more women are being inoculated than men.
According to the department’s latest data, Gauteng has the highest number of vaccinated individuals, of which 2 877 747 people have already been immunised.
The province is followed by KwaZulu-Natal (1 831 515), Western Cape (1 795 336), Eastern Cape (1 326 785) and Limpopo (1 157 916).
Meanwhile, the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) said the country recorded 3 699 new COVID-19 cases.
This brings the total number of laboratory-confirmed cases to 2 864 534, while 323 new hospital admissions were reported in the last 24 hours.
The statistics also show that a further 300 patients succumbed to the respiratory disease, pushing the death toll to 85 302 to date.
Globally, as of 14 September 2021, there have been 225 024 781 confirmed cases of COVID-19, including 4 636 153 deaths, reported to the World Health Organisation (WHO).
Global view
With nearly four million new cases reported globally in the past week, the WHO said this represents the first “substantial” decline in weekly cases in more than two months.
“All regions reported declines in new cases as compared to the previous week,” the WHO’s weekly epidemiological update pointed out.
Meanwhile, the organisation said the number of reported deaths has also declined compared to the previous week, with just over 62 000 new fatalities logged.
However, the report indicated that the African region logged an upsurge in the number of weekly deaths (7%), while South-East Asia reported the largest dip (20%).
The American and Eastern Mediterranean regions reported slightly smaller decreases, 9% and 6% respectively, while the numbers of deaths reported in the European and the Western Pacific Regions were similar to last week.
The highest numbers of new cases were reported from the United States (1 034 836 new cases, 20% decrease), the United Kingdom (256 051 new cases, 5% increase), India (248 248 new cases, 15% decrease), Iran (172 030 new cases, 17% decrease), and Turkey (158 236 new cases, 6% increase).
The Delta variant, which is significantly more contagious than the original variant of COVID-19, has now been reported in 180 countries since it was first reported in October 2020. – SAnews.gov.za
