South Africa's pharmaceutical regulator SAHPRA said on Monday it has received its first application to register a Covid-19 vaccine from Johnson & Johnson.
"As of today we have received one application, this was received on Thursday evening from J&J, and we started the review process," said Boitumelo Semete, chief executive of the South African Health Products Regulatory Authority (SAHPRA).
J&J did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.
The US firm's vaccine candidate is one of at least four Covid vaccines being trialled in South Africa, along with candidates being developed by Novavax, AstraZeneca and Pfizer.
Semete told a news