Enough vaccines in stock, says Phaahla as government targets 70% of SA

Minister of Health Dr Joe Phaahla has assured Parliament that there are enough Covid-19 vaccines available in the country, as well as healthcare workers to administer the jabs.

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Phaahla, on Thursday, addressed Parliament’s portfolio committee on health regarding government’s efforts in the fight against Covid-19 and the progress of the vaccination roll-out programme.

70% target

The minister told the committee that there is a sufficient supply of vaccines for people to get inoculated.

“We are at a stage where the supply of vaccines is fairly stable. We do have adequate supplies. We are very confident that during the course of this month, going into next month and if the suppliers continue to supply as agreed, we should be able to have enough stock to continue to administer the vaccine to our people right up to the end of the year,” he said.

The country also has enough healthcare workers to administer the vaccines, said Phaahla.

“We believe at this stage, we do have adequate capacity in terms of human resources and physical infrastructure to administer the vaccine to our people. This includes both public and private facilities. As you are aware, a number of private businesses, especially pharmacies, including your big chain pharmacies and also independent pharmacies, have also come on board to help us,” he said.

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With government looking to ramp up the vaccination programme, Phaahla said the department aimed to vaccinate up to 70% of the population by the end of the year.

The minister said all provincial governments were on board and had been involved in ramping up the vaccination rollout.

He added that the uptake of people getting vaccines was also high, ever since government opened vaccinations for all adults over the age of 18 last week.

There had been calls for the vaccine drive to be rolled out to 18-to-34 year olds immediately, rather than waiting until 1 September.

On vaccine conspiracies, Phaahla pointed out that government was aware of the increased anti-vaxxer campaigns on social media, adding that his department would need to improve in tackling this challenge.

Free transport

The health department is offering free transport to vaccination sites across the country to people who are over the age of 50.

On Tuesday, the department launched the Free Public Transport Pilot Project in which transport would be available to elderly citizens in certain parts of the Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng.

“Since the start of the vaccination roll-out programme, more than 50% of people over the age of 60 years have been vaccinated.

“The department has significantly increased access to vaccine by increasing the number of sites from 200 at the start to almost 2,500 public and private vaccination sites,” the department said in a statement.

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It further said government remained concerned that there was a low turnout of elderly people, who were most at risk of developing severe illness if they did not get vaccinated, despite government opening more vaccination sites across the country for citizens to get either the double-dose Pfizer-BioNTech or the single-dose Johnson & Johnson (J&J) shots.

“Despite these efforts, the department remains concerned that many older persons who are at highest risk of severe disease and death from Covid-19 remain unvaccinated.

The pilot project will end on 4 September.