In Cape Town, a 'Vaxi taxi' offers Covid-19 vaccines to locals

Cape Town's health department has deployed a mobile vaccination service, locally known as the "Vaxi Taxi", in Manenberg, offering Covid-19 vaccines to one of the city's biggest townships.

South Africa has entered its fourth wave of Covid infections, driven by the emergence of the Omicron variant.

According to Cape Town's health department, each Vaxi Taxi mobile site has two ambulances with one acting as the primary vaccination point while the other acts as a second vaccination and resuscitation centre.

Project leader Wayne Philander said they have been working with community partners to identify vaccination sites in an attempt to reach every corner of the Western Cape.

South Africa has so far fully vaccinated over 15 million people representing 25.3 percent of the population.

New COVID-19 cases in South Africa have burgeoned from about 200 a day in mid-November to more than 16,000 on Friday. Omicron was detected over a week ago in the country’s most populous province, Gauteng, and has since spread to all eight other provinces, Health Minister Joe Phaahla said.

Even with the rapid increase, infections are still below the 25,000 new daily cases that South Africa reported in the previous surge, in June and July.