South Africa has approved China's Sinovac vaccine against Covid-19, the acting health minister said, as the country faces a crippling third wave of infections that has paralysed hospitals and brought its death toll to 60,000.

“I would like to express gratitude to our regulatory authority for their sense of urgency, which included reducing turnaround time to process applications for registration of ... (the) Covid-19 vaccine,” Mamoloko Kubayi said in a statement.

The surge in infections in Africa's most industrialised nation has overwhelmed hospitals, especially in the main city of Johannesburg, and left overworked healthcare personnel struggling to find enough beds for critically ill patients.

Just over five per cent of South Africans have been vaccinated — or 3.3 million people out of a population of just less than 60 million, Reuters reports.