MKHIZE HOPES FOR VACCINE NEXT MONTH
Minister says work is being done behind scenes
SOUTH Africa is hoping to get Covid19 vaccines as early as next month and, ultimately, vaccinate 67% of the population to create a herd immunity against the coronavirus.
In a briefing yesterday, Health Minister Dr Zweli Mkhize announced that much work had been done behind the scenes to ensure that South Africa could access and deliver vaccines at a time of anxiety about the spread of the disease.
The roll-out of a vaccine will be done in phases starting with health-care workers through the Covax Facility, to be complemented in the second phase with the vaccine being administered to other essential workers, vulnerable citizens such as the elderly or those with comorbidities.
Mkhize said the initial funding came from the Solidarity Fund and negotiations were ongoing, including with medical aids for a private-public partnership for further phases of the roll-out.
“The process is now at a stage where the Council for Medical Schemes has engaged various medical schemes and I have signed amendments of regulations to allow for vaccines and other therapeutics to be part of the prescribed minimum benefits,” Mkhize said.
While there were sceptics, he said many technical issues had been resolved and a task team was working hard to deliver vaccines even earlier than President Cyril Ramaphosa had said in his address to the nation a week ago.
The roll-out will be led nationally with a one-procurement approach, and the private sector assisting with the implementation of the programme.
Discussions were at a “very sensitive stage”, Mkhize said.
“The only way of being able to deal with the Covid-19 pandemic is the provision of immunity through vaccination. We have been trying to follow what the best way is to deal with this,” he said.
The SA Health Products Regulatory Authority had a fast-track mechanism for vaccine applications, and the Health Department had embarked on distribution networks across all levels of the public and private sector.
This would go hand-in-hand with information as there were misconceptions and “vaccine hesitancy”, according to Mkhize.
He said he was confident South Africa could “catch up” with high-income countries which had already started with immunisation.
Health Department deputy director-general Dr Anban Pillay said a series of platforms including work-based, mobile outreach and vaccine centres would be established to involve provincial, district, local and private health sectors in the distribution of Covid-19 vaccines.
Initially, until at least March, vaccines were not expected to be delivered in significant numbers but the pace would increase dramatically as manufacturers brought vaccines online.
To date the authorities have already had in-depth negotiations with five vaccine producers, Pillay said.
The cumulative number of Covid-19 cases in South Africa stands at 1 088 889, with 29 175 deaths. This includes 418 Covid-19-related deaths on Friday and 288 on Saturday.
Dr Charl van Loggerenberg, general manager for emergency medicine at Life Healthcare Group, said the hospital was actively responding to the increased demand in patients seeking medical care, but human resources and equipment were under pressure and there were limitations on the number of patients that could be accommodated there, as in other hospitals.
“From the beginning of the pandemic, we have erected and removed temporary holding areas and assigned dedicated ‘respiratory assessment' areas as the surge fluctuated and moved.
“The number of patients in the hospital on any one day has exceeded the peak number we experienced during the first wave,” he said.
Van Loggerenberg said that due to the number of patients, their hospitals were experiencing significant pressure on ICU and high-care capacity beds.
Mediclinic International Group general manager for clinical performance, Dr Gerrit de Villiers, said their hospitals had also noted a strong, sustained and sudden increase in the number of patients across the Western Cape, Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal and in Namibia.
De Villiers said that as a result of the growing numbers the group had begun implementing additional measures to increase capacity.
“Our resources, notably staffing, emergency centre capacity and critical care resources, are under significant strain and, in many instances, are at capacity. We believe that it is important to ensure that the community does not delay care during this period, as this could put their health at further risk.”
Despite the challenges, De Villiers said their hospitals were still carrying out elective and non-emergency surgeries and would continue to do so as their resources and capacity allowed.