Weekend vaccinations have helped push Gauteng closer to the two-million vaccination mark, the health department has said.

The province clocked one-million vaccine doses administered in July, said Gauteng Health MEC, Dr Nomathemba Mokgethi. The increased vaccinations over weekends have seen the province moving towards doubling that.

As of Monday, 1 903 497 vaccine doses had been administered in the province. Of those, 362 952 were second doses of the Pfizer vaccine, while 216 151 were single-dose Johnson & Johnson jabs.

The Gauteng government increased the number of operational public vaccination sites over the weekend from four to 17.

The majority of these sites were in the Tshwane district, which had nine sites operational, Ekurhuleni and Johannesburg had three sites each, while the Sedibeng district had two sites.

A total of 5 449 vaccine doses were administered at these sites over the weekend.

"The fact that we have gone over one million people vaccinated during the month of July and are fast approaching two million talks to the high demand in communities to get vaccinated and the urgency with which we are approaching the vaccination rollout programme," Mokgethi said.

The newly opened sites were located closer to target populations, Mokgethi said.

"We have diverse vaccination sites – those that are fixed and open weekly during normal working hours, mass vaccination sites catering for large volumes, drive-through sites allowing people to get the jab in the comfort of their transportation, and mobile or pop-up sites that move from area to area depending on the programme of the vaccination campaign," Mokgethi said.

All Gauteng sites accept walk-ins whether people are registered on the Electronic Vaccination Data System (EVDS) or not.