South Africa’s health department expects to finalize accords to buy millions of additional coronavirus vaccines within about a month and has agreed on an expedited payment process with the National Treasury to avoid delays in delivery.

President Cyril Ramaphosa said this week that his administration had secured 20 million vaccine doses this year, without giving details of what they would cost. His announcement came days after the government struck a deal for an initial 1.5 million doses of a vaccine developed by AstraZeneca Plc and the University of Oxford from The Serum Institute of India Ltd., with first shipments set to arrive this month.

The 20 million doses will include a previously announced allocation from the Covax initiative that will be sufficient to inoculate 6 million people, but excludes those from the Serum Institute, said Anban Pillay, a deputy director-general in the health department. The nonprofit Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations are heading Covax, alongside the World Health Organization.

The additional vaccines “have been procured from an agreement perspective, we have signed off on that,” but details can’t be revealed at this stage, he said in an interview. “I think we will probably close all the deals in the next month or so because companies are now booking their supplies for quarter two to four.”