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South Africa’s two largest pharmacy chains, Clicks Group and Dis-Chem Pharmacies, said they plan to offer Covid-19 injections in their stores and provide warehousing and distribution facilities in the vaccine deployment program once the government provides more details.
Health Minister Zweli Mkhize on Sunday called on the private sector, including pharmacies, to help with the deployment, but the government has yet to describe exactly how they will help.
Dis-Chem and Clicks have a combined 45% dispensary market share.
Dis-Chem, with more than 180 stores, will offer the vaccines at all of its clinics across the country and is also looking to offer them at its eight Covid-19 test stations, the manager of Dis-Chem’s national clinic told Reuters, Lizeth Kruger.
“We will help and raise our hands,” Kruger said, adding that Dis-Chem will be involved from the second phase of the launch, which includes vaccinating essential workers such as teachers and people over 60.
In the first phase, the government wants to vaccinate around 1.25 million health workers in the country.
Health care experts have said that for the government to quickly vaccinate two-thirds of a country of 58 million people, it will have to pool resources from the private sector on a scale never before done in South Africa.
But so far, the government has not established a clear strategy on how it will deploy and vaccinate millions of people, even as coronavirus cases hit record levels every day due to a new, more contagious variant identified in mid-December.
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