Cape Town - Vaccination training for health-care professionals in the Western Cape is under way, with the first of 1 995 registered workers yesterday learning how to administer the Covid-19 biological preparation.
The training will equip vaccinators with the knowledge and skills to ensure safe and efficient Covid-19 vaccine administration.
The provincial health department said the number of vaccinators will grow daily as more health-care workers are added to the registration database.
“The number of vaccinators that need to be trained is determined by the National Health Department - one vaccinator can vaccinate between 40 to 50 people per day. It is estimated that 414 vaccinators are required for phase one. As the number of people needing to be vaccinated increases in phases 2 and 3, our number of vaccinators will also increase,” the department said.
The Western Cape by yesterday recorded a total of 267 426 confirmed Covid-19 cases and 10 377 deaths.
According to the province’s Covid-19 dashboard, the 41-50 age group had the highest number of infections, while most deaths were recorded in the 61-70 age group.
Nationally, the total number of confirmed Covid-19 cases is 1 456 309 and the total number of deaths, 44 399.
The Western Cape Health Department estimated that in phase 2 of vaccinations, it will need to vaccinate up to 2 million essential workers, as well as vulnerable groups including people older than 60, and anyone older than 18 with high-risk co-morbidities.
In phase 3, a further 2.9 million people over the age of 18 will be eligible to be vaccinated.
“The magnitude of the training programme and the importance of ensuring skilled service providers at the front line created an opportunity to collaborate with multiple stakeholders across the health platform such as private groups, NGOs and community health workers.
“Health-care workers have years of training, experience and knowledge on administering vaccines. Therefore, the focus of this training will be on specific information related to the Covid-19 vaccine – including the handling, storage, research, product information, data management and reporting aspects of this vaccine,” they said.
World Health Organisation (WHO) director-general Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has meanwhile said that for the third week in a row, the number of new cases of Covid-19 reported globally fell last week.
There were still many countries with increasing numbers of cases but at the global level, this was encouraging news, he said.
More than 100 million Covid-19 cases have been reported to the WHO globally and over 2 million people have lost their lives.
He said more cases were reported in the past month than during the first six months of the pandemic.
“It shows this virus can be controlled, even with the new variants in circulation. And it shows that if we keep going with the same proven public health measures, we can prevent infections and save lives.
“However, we have been here before. Over the past year, there have been moments in almost all countries when cases declined, and governments opened up too quickly and individuals let down their guard, only for the virus to come roaring back,” said Ghebreyesus.