SA’s vaccine roll-out picks up steam

As South Africa’s Covid-19 vaccination rollout stuttered into a more regular rhythm this week, close to a million doses had been administered – and there were signs that the process is ready to kick into high gear.

The number of people who have received their first dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine has now overtaken the number of health workers who have received the single dose of Johnson & Johnson (J&J).

According to the department of health, as of midnight on Monday, the total vaccinated people under the Sisonke Programme, which began on 17 February with the single dose J&J was 479,768.

A further 490,680 have got their first jabs of the Pfizer vaccine, meaning – according to the latest available figures – that 970,448 people have been vaccinated so far.

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There was confusion this week among the over-60s, who are the targets of the phase two process, about the reliability of the government’s electronic vaccination data system (EVDS) and whether or not “walk-in” vaccinations would be allowed.

Some sites were permitting these. Some who had registered on EVDS did get appointment notifications by SMS, but others did not.

Many chose walk-ins as the more reliable option. The good news is more sites are opening and workplaces are preparing to become involved.

Business Tech reported on Monday that Business for South Africa (B4SA) had said a key part of the accelerated roll-out will be private-sector vaccinations offered to workers, their families, and communities.

The group said about 110 private and 210 public sites were planned to be online this week.

Some of South Africa’s largest employers are now looking to open an initial 89 workplace sites, which are capable of vaccinating as many as 24 300 people a day.

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The mining industry is expected to be the biggest contributor initially, with 44 sites planned, capable of vaccinating 17,580 people a day, said Business Tech.

B4SA said 3.7 million doses of the J&J vaccine are expected by the end of June, with two million doses expected to arrive at the end of May.

This means there is a required daily capacity of 192,000 vaccinations to utilise before expiry – an increase from the current level of about 30,000 a day.

“There are more sites [for the public] and the operations took on board lessons from Sisonke,” health department spokeswoman Dr Lwazi Manzi said yesterday.

“We have to still ramp up to about 600,000 vaccines a week so we can reach our target of all persons over-60 vaccinated.”

Despite requiring very low cold storage, the roll-out of the Pfizer two-dose shot has been comparatively simple.

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And with fewer sites to dish out the J&J vaccination, the Sisonke trial may have work ahead of it, with 476,471 health workers still needing jabs.

The problem is the scheduled delivery of the J&J vaccines has “been delayed due to regulatory issues”, President Cyril Ramaphosa noted in his Sunday night fireside chat.

This was expected to happen mid-May, but has been delayed until the US and its Food and Drug Administration iron out apparent issues of cross contamination at a manufacturing plant.

This put the brakes on the 30 million J&J doses supposed to be manufactured in Gqeberha.

– amandaw@citizen.co.za