More than one million people get jab in KZN

KZN Health MEC Nomagugu Simelane and acting national Health Minister Mmamoloko Kubayi at the Moses Mabhida Stadium on Friday. Picture: Supplied

KZN Health MEC Nomagugu Simelane and acting national Health Minister Mmamoloko Kubayi at the Moses Mabhida Stadium on Friday. Picture: Supplied

Published Jul 26, 2021

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DURBAN - KWAZULU-Natal is pleased to have been able to vaccinate more than one million people since the start of the vaccination roll-out programme in February.

Health MEC Nomagugu Simelane said the province had passed the one million mark, and they were thankful that people had come out to get vaccinated.

Simelane said there was a high uptake for vaccination among those aged 35 and above and some of them had gone to vaccination sites to get vaccinated. She asked them to bring their friends and the elderly too because they were vulnerable to Covid-19.

She said those aged 35 and above were already being vaccinated in the province as they could not turn them away when they arrived at vaccination sites. She said during the week of civil unrest, although vaccinations were not halted the programme had been affected. While they had continued vaccinating at sites, they ended up vaccinating a low number of people because some health-care workers could not get to work.

Simelane added that although most of South Africa was in the third wave of the coronavirus, the whole province, except for two or three districts, was not experiencing the third wave.

During the civil unrest, they could not test the way they wished to test.

“From last Monday, services were normal. We were not closed. The problem was that roads were inaccessible. As a result, people did not arrive to get tested and it was difficult to send samples to labs. Maybe in the next five days or so we will see what our numbers say. The next five to seven days, that’s going to be a true reflection because we’ve started testing normally,” she said.

Premier Sihle Zikalala added that those aged 35 and above were already being vaccinated at sites such as Inkosi Albert Luthuli Central Hospital and Moses Mabhida Stadium because vaccines were available, and all other provincial sites would be ready for them from August 1.

On Friday, KZN recorded 100 Covid-19-related deaths.

On Sunday, the KZN Health Department said the province had recorded 1 701 new cases and continued to rank second-highest in terms of laboratory-confirmed cases in the country, with a 16% contribution.

The average number of cases recorded in the past seven days was 1 305 a day.

The province recorded 11 323 Covid-19-related deaths after recording 10 deaths on Saturday.

The department said that seven vaccinated health-care workers have died in the province.

Zikalala said their ability to compile data was affected by the civil unrest two weeks ago which was why KZN numbers had dropped. At one point the province registered around 600 new cases a day, which might have given a false impression that the rate of infections was decreasing.

However, with the return of data capturers and other partners, numbers had gone up.

“eThekwini Metro Municipality continues to contribute 35% of the reported deaths (3 997). Out of this total, 214 (2%) deaths occurred at home. The median age for the deaths was 63 years (range 0-105). Of the total deaths, 7 817 (69%) had comorbidities.”

Zikalala also said that the number of daily hospital isolations increased steadily in both the private and public sectors, including patients in ICU and those requiring ventilation. “The average number of isolations increased from 52 to 186 admissions per day since the beginning of July, using our seven-day moving average. The province currently has 1 907 patients admitted for Covid-19. This amounts to 1 009 in the private sector and 898 in public hospitals.”

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