A senior health department official has defended its decision to enable special categories of people to apply for the Covid-19 vaccination ahead of schedule, saying it is aimed at assisting those who need to travel overseas for non-leisure reasons.
“The rationale is an economic one, for people who need to travel for work or study,” said Nicholas Crisp, the health department’s deputy director-general for National Health Insurance.
“I want to see equity, but you have to be a pragmatist as well,” Crisp said. “If someone is going to do a deal that will create jobs you don’t want to limit that. And if someone has signed up for an education programme you don’t want them not to complete their studies.”
The health department ran into fierce criticism after issuing a circular on Sunday that set out categories of people who may apply for exemption from the eligibility criteria for vaccination which is currently restricted to people over the age of 50, healthcare workers, teachers and security personnel, and a limited number of workplace programmes.
The department then issued a notice on Tuesday afternoon withdrawing the circular, but did not offer an immediate explanation.
Crisp said the withdrawal was temporary and the circular was being revised to clarify the criteria for people to be considered for a priority shot. It would reissued shortly, he said.
Acting health minister Mmamoloko Kubayi said on social media the original circular had not been not authorised by the interministerial committee on vaccines, and she personally would wait until jabs were available for her age group. She is 43.
The categories in the circular released on Sunday included ministers, deputy ministers, premiers and MECS; SA diplomats and their families who have been posted overseas who wish to be vaccinated when they are in SA; individuals who need to travel outside SA, for reasons that include business or study commitments, representing SA at sporting events, and seeking medical care; and individuals nominated by the president, health minister, or health director-general. Foreign embassy staff would be vaccinated in line with the national protocol, but would be prioritised within their cohort.
The health department's original circular was slammed by the Health Justice Initiative (HJI), which said it wrong for the government to enable an elite few to get vaccinated ahead of people with health conditions that put them at increased risk of severe Covid-19.
“The circular is very broad and very vague. It is improper from a governance, public equity and risk prioritisation point of view,” said HJI founder Fatima Hassan. “The most shameful thing is they are making allowances for premiers, MECs, and a few students but not for a 30-year-old with HIV or cancer,” she said.
Crisp said the government had opted for a largely aged-based approach to determining vaccine eligibility, because there was clear evidence that increased age raised the risk of severe Covid-19, and there were no national data bases of people who have chronic conditions such as diabetes.
While medical scheme administrators have electronic records of people with chronic conditions, public sector data is patchy. There were, however, national registries for transplant recipients, dialysis and cancer patients, and work was under way to integrate these people into the vaccination programme ahead of their age groups, Crisp said.
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