South Africa has administered 16 999 722 doses of COVID-19 jabs as of Monday evening, the Department of Health said.

The tally includes the two-dose Pfizer vaccine as well as the single shot of the Johnson & Johnson jab.

According to the latest data, 159 732 vaccines were distributed in the last 24 hours.

Meanwhile, the number of fully vaccinated adults has now gone up to 8 501 712, while 12 268 451 people had received at least one dose of the COVID-19 shot.

In addition, the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) logged 578 new COVID-19 infections.

The dashboard shows that the majority of new cases are from KwaZulu-Natal after 126 people were confirmed to have contracted the virus.

Gauteng is trailing behind KwaZulu-Natal with 108 infections, 92 in the Western Cape, 86 in Free State and 50 in the Eastern Cape.

“This increase represents a 3.8% positivity rate,” the NICD added.

This means the country has 2 897 521 laboratory-confirmed cases to date, while the death toll stands at 87 216 after 164 more patients succumbed to the disease.

The NICD confirmed on Saturday that South Africa’s third wave was officially over, as the national seven-day moving average of daily case numbers, positivity rate and testing rate continue to drop, with sustained decreases in all provinces

Meanwhile, the public health institute said 17 588 025 tests have been conducted in both public and private sectors, while 6 931 people are currently hospitalised.

“There has been an increase of 85 hospital admissions in the past 24 hours.”

According to the World Health Organisation, as of 27 September 2021, there have been 231 703 120 reported cases of COVID-19, 4 746 620 deaths and 5 924 819 985 administered vaccine doses.

Source: South African Government News Agency