Age is most important factor in administering Covid-19 vaccines, says Mkhize

Health Minister Dr Zweli Mkhize on Thursday said lessons learned from the vaccine rollout to healthcare workers showed that age is the most important factor determining adverse outcomes such as death, hospitalisation and moderate to severe illness from the virus.

Mkhize said some of the key findings from the Sisonke Protocol using Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine have necessitated some revisions to the country’s rollout plan. He was speaking at Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Academic Hospital during his visit to assess the readiness of Gauteng’s Covid-19 vaccination centres.

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South Africa is preparing to administer vaccines to vulnerable groups in the second phase of the government’s vaccination plan expected to kick off from 17 May 2021 and running until 17 October 2021. So far, 283,629 health workers have been vaccinated and the government has secured a combined 51 million doses of vaccines – 31 million from J&J’s one-dose vaccine and 20 million from Pfizer’s two-dose vaccine.

Mkhize said they learned from the Sisonke Protocol that age alone as a factor surpasses co-morbidities, occupational exposure or potential exposure from living in congregate settings like nursing homes and correctional centres. He said as a result, the government would adopt a flexible and practical approach to group citizens who are eligible for vaccines based on their age, most likely 60 and above, to ensure vulnerable populations are protected from Covid-19.

“During the Sisonke Protocol we found that every time a criteria is introduced to stratify [group] populations at risk, this compounds the complication of rolling out vaccines – we lose time, efficiency and, worst of all, the ability to capture vulnerable populations.

“We also render the system vulnerable to fraud such as queue jumping. Having said that, we will adopt a flexible and practical approach to age based stratification to ensure we ultimately net the most vulnerable as quickly as possible,” Mkhize said.

Western Cape head of health Dr Keith Cloete on Thursday said the province supported an age-based approach for the second phase of mass vaccinations.

“If you say over 60s, it’s on the identification number and birthdate of the person. That way, you’re dealing with fewer parameters and indicators to actually try to put systems in place. When you get to the age groups and start introducing essential workers, we need to make sure that the system is foolproof and that the right people are there,” Cloete said.

Vaccination centres

Mkhize said the government also had to reassess the kind of vaccination sites that citizens will be expected to go to for inoculations. He said provinces had identified thousands of sites which are undergoing a process of verification.

“In the same way that we announced activated quarantine sites, we will also announce when vaccination sites are incrementally activated,” he said.

The minister also said there were some key lessons from the Electronic Vaccination Data System (EVDS) for healthcare workers to register for their vaccines. Mkhize said the EVDS needed to be refined with a robust outreach programme and a support call centre.

“We will announce when the EVDS system is ready to accept citizens whonwill qualify for phase two and we will make timeous calls for the relevant population groups to register as the programme progresses. We will also embark on an extensive outreach programme to assist citizens who may have challenges registering on the system.”

Article by Thapelo Lekabe.

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