Registration of those aged between 50 and 59 years for the Covid-19 vaccination will begin on July 1, with the possibility of registration for the over 40s beginning in August if there are adequate supplies of vaccines, acting minister of health Mmamoloko Kubayi-Ngubane said at a media briefing Friday.
The targeted population of the 50-59 cohort is 4.8-million people with vaccination of 3.3-million being regarded by the department of health as a pleasing outcome.
Also targeted for early July is the vaccination of some of the essential workers such as staff in the police, correctional services, defence, department of justice, customs and excise and the SA Social Security Agency, where planning is well advanced.
The minister said a report would be presented to the national coronavirus command council (NCCC) at its meeting on Tuesday about the surge in cases in Gauteng, which recorded 9,521 new cases on Thursday (59% of the total in the country) compared to the 10,806 (62%) on Wednesday. The NCCC would decide what measures should be introduced, if any, to deal with the situation in the province, she said.
“It is inevitable that the wave in Gauteng will spill over into the rest of the country,” the minister said.
Currently over 60s are being vaccinated with about 2.5-million of the 3.75-million registered having been vaccinated so far, though only about 50% of that age cohort had been registered.
Vaccinations in the education sector began two days ago with 50,000 being vaccinated per day. The minister said if that rate were maintained, the vaccination of the sector would be completed in the next 10 days.
The total number of vaccinations per day over the past two days has exceeded 100,000 including educators against a target set by president Cyril Ramaphosa of 300,000 per day.
Kubayi-Ngubane noted that demand for vaccines by the over-60s was low and this was probably due to a high level of vaccine hesitancy, the inaccessibility of vaccine sites for some and the fact that mastering the technology required for registration may be a challenge for some.
The official in the department responsible for the vaccination programme Nicholas Crisp noted that only 50% of the over-60s cohort had registered for the vaccination while the vaccination of the education sector had gone “remarkably well”.
The minister said that with the current flow of vaccines — 300,000 Johnson & Johnson (J&J) vaccines arrived last week and 1.2-million J&J vaccines on Thursday — it would be possible to begin vaccinating front-line workers and at workplaces.
Deputy director-general in the health department Anban Pillay said it was just a question of time before the coastal provinces experienced the same surge in infections that has hit Gauteng, with signs of a surge in the Western Cape. Coastal provinces had largely been spared so far. A significant increase in the number of infections was anticipated across all provinces in the next couple of weeks except the Free State, where the spread of the virus seemed to be stabilising.
He noted that hospitals in Gauteng, the North West and Northern Cape were under enormous pressure because of the number of Covid-19 admissions. Nationally, there were adequate supplies of bulk oxygen and personal protective equipment, though the North West needed to increase its stock level of the latter.
Crisp noted that there would be a very stable supply of the Pfizer vaccine until the end of July. Pfizer has committed just over 15.5-million doses in quarter three, of which 2.1-million doses are expected in July. There has, however, been no confirmed delivery schedule for the remaining 500,000 J&J vaccines to make up the two-million doses that had to be destroyed because of contamination. However, SA was “not in a vaccine constrained environment”, he said.
He said a target of 250,000 doses per day had been set for the end of July.
Prof Barry Schoub, who chairs the ministerial advisory committee on Covid-19 vaccines, gave details of a recent study in England, the results of which had been published the New England Journal of Medicine. They showed that the viral load transmitted by those who had been vaccinated was very low in a household, showing that vaccination did reduce onward transmission of the virus very significantly.
Other studies showed that almost all cases of heart inflammation after a Pfizer vaccination were mild, extremely rare, without permanent side effects and short hospital stays, and mainly affected young men. There have been no reports of such cases in SA.
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.