South Africa was said to have started its COVID-19 vaccine roll-out.
Frontline healthcare workers around the country are all getting a jab of the Johnson and Johnson vaccine. More vaccines are expected from other manufacturers in March 2021 as the country is set for mass vaccination
In order to gain herd immunity South Africa is targeting 67% coverage, which translates to about 40 million people. The National Department of Health is set to meet this target by the end of 2021. The roll-out of the vaccines will occur in a phased approach. The first phase is for the healthcare workers who are at the frontline of this pandemic and three to four times as likely as the general public to contract the disease. More than 54,500 public sector health workers were diagnosed with COVID-19 and nearly 800 lives have been claimed.
Roll-out for healthcare workers began in Gauteng in February, with the Johnson and Johnson vaccine rolled out as part of a phase 3b study, to gather additional data towards getting regulatory authority approval, at Steve Biko Academic and Chris Hani Baragwanath hospitals.
The South African Health Products Regulatory Authority has approved the trial currently happening and is said to approve this vaccine soon for emergency use, after its approval by the US Food and Drug Administration. This will extend access to the vaccine to people beyond the study population.
The second phase of the roll-out will be for essential workers like teachers, law-enforcement officers and those people involved in food provision. It is expected to commence in late April or early May 2021. Essential workers have an increased risk of exposure because of the nature of their work.
This phase will include people living in congregate settings (where close contact within confined facilities will increase exposure risk) such as prisons. Also included in the second phase are people older than 60 or with co-morbid diseases (a group at risk for severe disease).
The third phase will target the rest of the general public, aiming to get to levels that will confer “herd immunity”. This is when a large enough proportion of a community is immune to an infectious disease to give protection to those who are not immune.
There is a great effort from the state and private sectors to get vaccines for South Africans. Vaccination training was carried out nationwide in preparation for this roll-out, and online platforms developed to facilitate efficient and fast roll-out of life-saving vaccines.
The process is a dynamic one – scientists found out that the B1.251 or 501V2 variant, which was the cause of South Africa’s second wave, was not adequately covered by the AstraZeneca vaccine, which brought the planned roll-out of this vaccine to a complete halt.But it is important that in this short period of time the Johnson and Johnson vaccine was mobilised and is currently given to healthcare workers. The national department of health will continue to oversee the vaccine roll-out in both public and private sectors.
As more vaccines become accessible, the number of vaccination sites will increase in numbers. If there is continued collaboration between all sectors of the health system, this gigantic task will be a success.
The health minister said that nine million doses of the Johnson and Johnson vaccine have been secured, with the first batch of 80,000 currently being rolled out to healthcare workers. Additionally 20 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine are to be received by the end of March 2021.These vaccines will help reach out to the target population, and with ongoing production and procurement the prospects of vaccinating all South Africans who need – and want – to be vaccinated.
Preparations and training have been made in order to accommodate the large number of vaccines that will need to be given. These platforms to support the roll-out are in the state and private sectors.
In terms of human resources, South Africa has an group of scientists and scientific networks. The method in which the new variant was quickly discovered and characterised bears witness to this fact.