Vaccine hopefuls must stick to roll-out protocols to avoid disappointment

The Gauteng Department of Health urged healthcare workers on Tuesday to adhere to the outlines vaccine roll-out procedure as the nationwide drive to inoculate 1,2 million workers in the sector intensified.

To date, the province had received 16 800 (21%) of the 80 000 doses of the Johnson & Johnson (J&J) vaccines. This start to the first phase of the roll-out was being done through a private-public partnership between government called the Sisonke Program. This was  essentially a roll-out at trial level, as J&J had to date only received a licence to distribute the vaccine for study purposes.

According to Gauteng government spokesperson, Motalatale Modiba, these doses were  allocated to two study sites:  Steve Biko Academic Hospital (5 720 doses) and Chris Hani Baragwanath Academic Hospital (11 080 doses).

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“It should be noted that 5571 of these are allocated to the private sector ” said Modiba. Of those 5030 were distributed to hospital groups and were were with 541 to general practitioners (GPs).

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“As of Monday, 22 February, 5214 healthcare workers have been vaccinated in the province since the start of the Sisonke Vaccine Programme last week Wednesday. Other vaccination sites across the province will be activated when more vaccines are delivered in the coming weeks. We urge all healthcare workers to adhere to the outlined procedure and follow the five easy steps.”

The prodecure was as follows:

1. Register on EVDS portal
2. Respond to SMS invite for early access
3. Provide consent to take part in the implementation study
4. Receive your vaccination voucher
5. Attend your vaccination centre for administration

Health workers were advised against showing up at vaccination sites without following this procedure. Members of the public who had yet to register were urged to do so on the Electronic Vaccine Data System (EVDS) portal.

Simnikiweh@citizen.co.za

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