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Health Minister Dr. Zweli Mkhize says the Health Department expects the first phase of the country’s vaccination rollout to take about three months to complete.
This follows the arrival of the first shipment of one million doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine on Monday from the Serum Institute of India (SII). The vaccines will be administered to the country’s 1.2 million health workers.
Another 500,000 injections are also expected this month.
“The first phase should take around three months, the second phase six months, and the last phase should take three or more months, depending on what the situation and the supply is at that time,” Mkhize said.
He spoke during a briefing for Parliament’s health portfolio committee on the Covid-19 vaccine implementation strategy.
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The minister said that in the second phase of the vaccination program, essential workers such as police officers, teachers and those who will be comorbidities will be inoculated.
“However, if we find that we can secure adequate vaccinations before the end of three months, we will begin the second phase anyway and open our logistics processes to move forward,” he said.
Mkhize told MPs that the government had approached various vaccine manufacturers to obtain the injections, but they were waiting for final agreements to be signed.
“However, according to our terms of agreement at the regional level, we have nine [vaccines] that is insured by Johnson & Johnson, and another 20 million that are insured by Pfizer and there are also another 12 million that we should expect from the Covax Facility, ”Mkhize said.
The vaccines already purchased will ensure that at least 26 million citizens can be vaccinated, the minister said. He also said they would make announcements, in due course, about where they would buy other vaccines.
The minister warned that the vaccination process would have some challenges up front as developed nations experience.
“We must say that it will not be a simple process,” he said. “We expect there to be mistakes, start and stop problems, there will be problems of new lessons on challenges and obstacles. All of that will be taken into account as we move forward. “
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He said the government also made commitments to various stakeholders, such as religious leaders and civil society, to explain to them the role they want them to play in rolling out vaccination.
“All the provinces have prepared their plans and are ready to start vaccinations. Over the course of all of that, we have trained various health workers and have also involved various stakeholders, ”said Mkhize.
On storing the jabs, Mkhize said that the vaccines that arrived from IBS were being stored at the biopharmaceutical company Biovac and that the government had identified centers in the country where other vaccines would be stored for preservation.
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