South Africa’s medicines regulator SAHPRA said on Friday that it had received documentation for the COVID-19 vaccine developed by China’s Sinovac.

It added in a statement that it would now start evaluating the data and assessing the efficacy of the vaccine.

South Africa's current inoculation is with Johnson and Johnson vaccines. The country despite being Africa's most impacted with over 1.5 million recorded cases has yet to receive doses under the COVAX facility.