The government’s plan to scale up coronavirus vaccinations to reach 250,000 people a day by the end of this week has been dealt a huge setback by the violence, which forced inoculation sites to remain closed for the second day throughout KwaZulu-Natal and in parts of Gauteng.
The vaccine drive also slowed in other provinces as Discovery and Momentum closed sites nationwide over safety concerns. It is the latest in a series of blows that have battered SA’s inoculation programme, which was finally picking up pace after getting off to a slower-than-anticipated start in mid-May.
Last-minute safety concerns delayed supplies of the Johnson & Johnson shot by more than a month, leaving the government with limited stocks of Pfizer/ BioNTech jabs on hand at the start of the rollout.
Supplies improved by July, enabling the programme to scale up to 191,000 daily shots by Friday, at which point acting health minister Mmamoloko Kubayi said the government expected to reach 250,000 jabs a day by the end of this week.
However, only 146,577 vaccines were administered nationwide on Monday, and only 137,421 on Tuesday. The biggest drop was in KwaZulu-Natal which dispensed only 3,956 jabs on Monday and 1,938 on Tuesday, a fraction of the 37,560 it achieved on Friday. By Tuesday evening, a total of 4.54-million doses had been administered.
The government deployed the army on Monday to try to quell rioters who were looting shops and destroying property.
The violence continued into Tuesday, disrupting food and medical supply chains in KwaZulu-Natal, preventing the provision of many routine health services, and forcing hospitals to secure police escorts to ensure oxygen supplies could be delivered to their facilities.
Pharmacy chain Clicks, which owns medicines distribution company United Pharmaceutical Distributors (UPD), was forced to close its Durban warehouse due to looting that began on Tuesday morning, said CEO Vikesh Ramsunder.
The company, which shut all its stores and vaccination sites in KwaZulu-Natal on Monday, is flying in stock from Johannesburg to ensure supplies are maintained to health-care facilities, he said. “We have beentrying to get support from the authorities but have had no support at all,” he said.
Even private security firms had been unable to assist.
SA’s three biggest private hospital groups said they had suspended the provision of coronavirus vaccines and cancelled elective surgery in KwaZulu-Natal, as they prioritise care for patients already admitted to their facilities.
Netcare CEO Richard Friedland said the group was flying emergency supplies of medicine to KwaZulu-Natal on Tuesday evening, after its key supplier was unable to distribute products. Maintaining reliable oxygen supplies is a key concern, as it is required in greater volume as Covid-19 cases rise.
“Ordinarily, we would have one to two weeks’ supply on hand, but we now need deliveries every few days. All suppliers have had to require police escorts,” he said.
Life Healthcare CEO Peter Wharton-Hood said 25% of the company’s staff and many of the doctors working in its KwaZulu-Natal facilities were unable to get to work on Tuesday morning.
“My appeal to the nation is public and private health-care infrastructure requires stability to function. The unintended consequence of continued disruption is that innocent people in hospital will be severely compromised,” he said.
Mediclinic said the violence has disrupted supplies and the movement of patients, and has forced it to cancel elective surgery in some areas.
Looters targeted dozens of pharmacies in KwaZulu-Natal, stripping dispensaries and destroying infrastructure.
Independent Community Pharmacy Association spokesperson Sham Moodley said 47 of its member pharmacies, as well as stores owned by Dis-Chem, Medirite and Clicks, had been targeted in KwaZulu-Natal. Medicine wholesalers and distributors suspended operations and are not making deliveries, and the pharmacies that are able to operate safely are running low on stock.
“The supply chain is non-existent,” he said.
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