Johannesburg, Jul 6 (IANS): South Africa launched the vaccination of police officers with J&J vaccine to protect the police who are at the frontline in enforcing regulations.

The vaccination started on Monday morning in Johannesburg with the vaccination of police minister Bheki Cele and national police commissioner Khehla Sitole.

Cele said that the vaccination of police officers would protect them while they enforce disaster management act which is meant to tackle Covid-19, the Xinhua news agency reported.

"We have been looking forward to this day. It is unfortunate that we are getting vaccinated when we have lost 772 of our members. We wish this could have came earlier. A total of 32,500 of our members were affected and about 30,000 have recovered. I urge members to get vaccinated ... so that they would be able to work protected," said Cele.

He called on the police to observe the Covid-19 protocols even after vaccination.

Sitole said that the government is investing in the health of the police, urging them to subject themselves for vaccination.

"The police are the ones at the forefront when things happen. They are deployed to support the department of health to control the virus and secure vaccines. All nine provinces, police stations, let us all take the vaccine so that we are healthy and support the nation's vaccination and comply with Covid-19 protocols," he said.

The police said they expect a total of 180,000 employees to receive the jab at the 108 registered vaccination sites across the country.