Durban - AS THE country begins its roll-out of Covid-19 vaccines, with front-line healthcare workers being the first in the queue to receive them, the KwaZulu-Natal Department of Health says healthcare workers will not be forced to have the jab against their will.
The announcement was made by Health MEC Nomagugu Simelane-Zulu at a media briefing led by premier Sihle Zikalala.
“People are not going to be forced to take the vaccination. Even health workers are not going to be forced to allow themselves to be inoculated. It will have to be something that will have to come from within,” she said, as they detailed their plans on how they would be rolling out the vaccine across the province.
On Monday, South Africa received its first batch of vaccines in a fanfare-filled event.
The AstraZeneca vaccine, which is produced by the Serum Institute of India has already been hastily approved by the SA Health Products Regulatory Authority.
Simelane-Zulu said they would have vaccines that would be held at the provincial depot in eThekwini, but each district in KZN will have its own centre where the vaccines would be stored.
The centres will be ones that already stored medication and other vaccines.
The department would be using its existing facilities and the same procedures they used for administering other vaccines, Simelane-Zulu said .
She said that there would not be any tender process from the KZN Department of Health for the distribution of the vaccines and that it was the national department that was responsible for the distribution of the vaccines to the various provinces and districts.
“There is no tender that is going to be issued. There is no tender in place and no tender going to be considered at all”.
She said as soon as the vaccine has completed its quarantine period it will be distributed.
The rollout would also include strict security measures when it was coming into the province.
Zikalala said the vaccine would arrive in the province around February 14.
“Staff in direct contact with patients will be prioritised. To date, the province has identified 91 vaccination sites, which will include all the public hospitals and Community Health Centres (CHCs). These hospitals and CHCs will be responsible for the clinics, and other sites that are part of the value chain in their catchment areas.”
He said a total of 163 256 health personnel from various sectors in KZN were eligible to receive the vaccination during the first phase.
This figure included 81 000 health-care workers in the public sector and 49 000 in the private sector, he said. Zikalala said they had developed a pre-registration for health-care workers for each facility.
These included 81000 in the public sector and 49 000 in the private sector.
Denosa KZN provincial secretary Mandla Shabangu said it was hard to say whether there would be a successful roll-out of the vaccines.
From what he knew the roll-out programmes were delayed and this could possibly lead to everything being done in a rush.
Shabangu said he had not come across an orientation programme for health-care workers.
Shabangu said that he expected health-care workers would not want to take the vaccine for a number of reasons.
One of these is how some health-care workers do not take the flu vaccine because of the side effects they get. He said health-care workers who do not vaccinate should not be discriminated against.
South African Medical Association spokesperson Dr Mvuyisi Mzukwa said they welcomed the roll-out plan by the government but they had misgivings.
He said this was because the government often had good ideas on paper, but did not live up to them in practice.
Mzukwa also noted how hesitant the government was to work with GPs even though these were the people who were often popular with communities. He said health-care workers who chose not to get shots of the vaccine were doing it as it was a personal decision on their part.
Mzukwa said it was also the case that some health-care workers were concerned about the safety of the vaccines while there were some who believed in conspiracy theories. He also pointed out that most medicine had side effects.
Daily News