SA will face the anticipated third wave of the Covid-19 pandemic and go through the winter season without having achieved herd immunity.
By yesterday, the country had not even vaccinated 10% of its 1.25 million healthcare workforce.
The country is only expected to get most vaccines during the winter season which is expected to intertwine with the third wave of the pandemic.
Chairman of the ministerial advisory committee on vaccines Prof Barry Schoub projects that SA will achieve herd immunity against Covid-19 early next year when about 40 million adults would have been vaccinated.
Schoub said: "We couldn't afford that because our economy is not up to it so we are now struggling with bi-literal negotiations and as well as Covax [WHO's global pooled procurement of Covid-19 vaccines for various countries]."
He said the country is expected to get about 500,000 vaccines from Johnson & Johnson (J&J) at the end of the month. Another 9 million to 11 million doses would arrive by mid-year and another 600,000 from Pfizer at the end of the month.
Schoub said there was another 5-milion to 7-million from Pfizer which is expected between April and June while Covax was expected to send through 100,000 doses of Pfizer by next month.
"We are worried that phase two [of the vaccination programme] will start in winter... we hope that a lot of the people at risk are vaccinated before the third wave starts," Schoub said.
Health department spokesperson Popo Maja said by Monday 105,736 healthcare workers across the country had been vaccinated.
"We hope to reach 10% of the [1.25 million] health workforce this week," Maja said yesterday.
He said the Sisonke team which is rolling out the vaccination of health workers in an implementation study is "working closely with J&J to ensure a steady stream of deliveries of vaccine from abroad to SA".
Maja said they envisaged that a third batch of vaccines from J&J meant for the healthcare workers will arrive on Saturday.
J&J has committed to donate 500,000 doses of vaccines to SA for the study which the country is using to vaccinate its health-care workers as part of the first phase of its vaccine rollout programme.
National Institute for Communicable Diseases acting executive director Prof Adrian Puren said the availability of the vaccine is very important for SA to win the battle against the pandemic as the virus may adopt a variant which could be highly transmissible.
"Changes in the lineage [of the virus] affects vaccine effectiveness, a highly transmissible lineage may require a higher community immunity level," Puren said.
He said applying the non-pharmaceutical interventions optimally as the main means of fighting the pandemic may not be sustainable in the long run.
Dr Clare Cutland, a scientific coordinator at the Wits African Leadership in Vaccinology Expertise consortium, said although she was not privy to the details surrounding the vaccine doses coming to SA, they were urgently needed as the next step to fight Covid-19.
"Vaccines need to be rolled out as soon as possible... the problem is that we don't have the vaccines here; we believe the AstraZeneca vaccine should still be given to high-risk people now, at least to give some protection," Cutland said.
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