City of Joburg elated at 1 million vaccinations

The City of Johannesburg’s Member of the Mayoral Committee (MMC) for Health and Social Development, Eunice Mgcina, has on August 18 expressed jubilation as over one million vaccinations were reached in the region this week.

This follows the revelation by Gauteng Premier David Makhura on August 17 that Johannesburg had become the first region in the province to vaccinate one million residents.

This figure represents a sixth of the total population of Johannesburg, which as of 2021 estimations is 5 926 668 million people.

The premier, with senior members of his executive team and the City of Joburg executive mayor, Jolidee Matongo, City of Joburg Speaker Nonceba Molwele, MMC Mgcina and Group Corporate and Shared Services MMC Loyiso Masuku visited Lenasia South in Region G as part of the efforts to galvanise support for the provincial vaccination programme.

In acknowledging the remarkable feat, Mgcina said the one million mark was a great tribute to the tireless efforts of the City’s health workers in the private and public sectors.

To date, 1 048 092 residents have received a Covid-19 vaccination.

“It is obviously a great success and we are elated at reaching this number. However, we still have around five million more people to vaccinate.

“We dare not be complacent about this achievement. We pause only to reflect how far we have come since May 2021 when we first opened our doors for vaccinations, and I am hoping that by March 2022 we would have surpassed the three million mark and more, which represents half the population.

“To this end, over the next few months, we are going to be out in full force at all the City’s seven regions to ensure that we get as many residents to register and vaccinate as it is possible.

“We are also going to be encouraging those people who are eligible for their second vaccination to also go out and get the additional dose of vaccination,” said Mgcina.

She added that the City, working with the provincial government, was also continuing with ward-based health promotion to get more people vaccinated.

“We have been busy across the City in the last seven days visiting and monitoring vaccination sites and I am pleased that despite the persistent cold weather, residents are still coming out to get their jabs.

“However, we are ramping up our campaign and we have already started door-to-door drives to provide information to residents and our health promoters are out educating residents about the benefits of vaccination.

“Vaccines are an important part of stopping the spread of Covid-19. They offer protection by reducing the risk of infection or the severity of the infection and provide population immunity. The vaccination programme is a priority in the fight to minimise the spread of Covid-19 infection and vaccinations decrease the risk of death in those who are immunised,” said Mgcina.

She also paid tribute to all nurses, doctors, health workers, environmental health practitioners, community-based health workers and health promoters in the City and praised them for being at the forefront of the battle against Covid-19.

“All our health workers combined have truly been our foot soldiers in the fight against Covid-19. They have really done a remarkable job and we are truly indebted to their hard work and I salute them,” she added.

Residents who are 35 years and above are eligible to vaccinate and they can do so at 53 vaccination sites (including those set up by the private health care sector and NGOs) across the City’s seven regions and these are open from Monday to Friday between 08:00 and 16:00.

There are vaccination sites operated by the private sector, NGOs and the Gauteng Department of Health that is also open on weekends.