Coming just days after a third wave was officially declared in Gauteng, and months of delays, frustration and confusion, South Africa’s COVID vaccination programme is at last rolling out on Monday.
The vaccination programme will start off mostly on old age homes, at 87 sites across 9 provinces.
Fanned out across nine provinces and 87 sites, healthcare workers and those licensed to administer vaccines will start the mammoth task, which will kick off mostly at old age homes.
Those who are registered and eligible will receive a vaccination date and site to visit where they will either receive the once-off Johnson and Johnson vaccination – or the first dose of the Pfizer vaccine with another to be taken a fortnight later.
A vaccine site such as a pharmacy may charge up to R354.75 per dose of Pfizer, and R330 for a dose of Johnson and Johnson, according to a memo released by the department of health.
Additionally, a R70 fee for administering the vaccine will be billed to the recipient’s health insurance company or the government if uninsured.
The programme will also cover the hundreds of thousands of healthcare workers who have not yet received their vaccinations.
Health Minister Zweli Mkhize, health MECs and other representatives described their plans for the nation on Sunday night.
Dr Mkhize is under no illusion about what lies ahead and what it will take to get it all done.
“Five million senior citizens are targeted to be completed by the end of June, provided that the supply of vaccines flow as anticipated.”
To put this into context, that’s just 44 days for this target to be met and given some of the setbacks experienced during the Sisonke implementation study, the government will face many sceptics.
“We know that everyone has been very anxious to know what will happen and how we will start to vaccinate our most vulnerable citizens and then move onto vaccinating the general population,” Dr Mkhize said.
According to the minister, over 1.2 million senior citizens have registered to be inoculated thus far. Officials are also hoping to vaccinate an additional 700 000 health workers during this time.
Text messages are being sent out to citizens aged 60 years and over, to get help them prepare.
As the campaign begins, there should be over 975 000 doses of Pfizer vaccines in stock, which have stringent, ultra-cold storage requirements.
Dr Mkhize emphasised that Monday or this week is not open to all senior citizens 60 year and above, rather that old age homes will be the priority.
“We recommend that as many people as possible register beforehand. We will not accommodate people walking into the vaccination sites, the program has been designed to avoid long queues, that’s why we want to keep people on going in based on the message inviting them for vaccination.”
However, some provinces with smaller populations,such as Mpumalanga and the North West, have stated they would try to accommodate senior citizens who would have travelled long distances to vaccination sites.
Dr Mkhize underscored the difficulty of conducting such a programme.
“This is just to know how many vaccines you will get out of a vial and how you draw out the requisite amount, to allow us a few days to iron out teething problems and we expect there will be many teething problems so we are expected to start slow.”
Source: Eyewitness News
