As government fights to quell rising panic among healthcare workers who fear they will miss out on receiving a Covid-19 vaccine jab, the state has gone into overdrive to recruit and train thousands of vaccinators.
On Sunday, Steve Biko Academic Hospital descended into chaos when hundreds of healthcare workers, who were unable to register on the state’s Covid-19 electronic vaccination data system, flooded the hospital that has become one of government’s dedicated vaccine sites.
The chaos resulted in hundreds of healthcare workers, who had registered on the system and were queuing for their jab, being unable to be inoculated.
The health department began rolling out the country’s vaccination programme last week.
The first phase, set to end in April, will see healthcare workers inoculated with the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. On Tuesday the first 80,000 doses of the J&J vaccine – the vaccine with the highest efficacy rate against the Covid-19 variant circulating in SA – arrived in the country.
Senior health officials have called for calm, asking healthcare workers not to go to vaccination sites until they receive an SMS notification.
Prof Glenda Gray, co-principal investigator of the J&J vaccine trial, said “people must not panic”.
“As far as we are concerned, it is all systems go. There are more batches of J&J doses earmarked for delivery. Within 14 days we have to use up the current doses that we have. Every 14 days we will receive another 80,000 doses.
“We will soon be opening more vaccine sites to make the inoculation process easier and so as not to overwhelm the systems and the people that we have in place.”
She said they understood that people were anxious.
“That anxiety is driven by demand, but we see that as a positive thing. Once everything settles down and we find a good rhythm, with the electronic vaccine data system kicking in, then everything will become a lot smoother.”
She said the panic and chaos at Steve Biko Academic Hospital had occurred because healthcare workers, who had battled to register on electronic vaccine data system, had descended on the site seeking help.
“Sometimes electronic data systems are hard to navigate. Not everyone is good at electronic stuff and people then get anxious. That’s what happened on Sunday when many rushed to the site to seek help to get enrolled ...
“Those healthcare workers who were registered but missed out on their inoculation will get another SMS notifying them of when to come to their allocated site.”
That anxiety is driven by demand, but we see that as a positive thing. Once everything settles down and we find a good rhythm, with the electronic vaccine data system kicking in, then everything will become a lot smoother.
She said the weekend’s inoculation process had been a success.
“At Steve Biko [Academic Hospital] we vaccinated 1,020 people. In total on Sunday we vaccinated over 5,000 around SA, which is an enormous achievement. Our daily healthcare worker inoculation target is 6,600 people.
“We were very close to that, and the day was a success.”
She said every hour they were making improvements to their systems.
“The vaccine programme is not even five days old yet. There will be teething problems. The thing about problems is that you must find solutions, which is what we are doing really well.”
Gray said while many people just saw problems, “what we saw was an unfolding miracle”.
“Yes, people had to queue, but they will not always have to. The system is slowly improving as the teething issues are resolved. We are committed to making this a success, which is driven by our team who include volunteers who answered government’s call for help in vaccinating people.”
Gray said because of the high demand for vaccines they were ramping up the training of vaccinators.
“To vaccinate 40 million South Africans you need collaboration and support. That’s why government called for volunteers to help it in its inoculation endeavours.”
National health DDG Anban Pillay said an estimated 6,000 vaccinators were needed.
“We will use existing vaccinators; hire additional vaccinators, contract pharmacies and GPs and occupational healthcare clinics as well.
“Some medical schemes and administrators have offered additional resources for the private sector rollout.”
He said they were expecting phase one of the vaccination programme to be completed in April, with phase two, which is the vaccination of the elderly, those with comorbidities, life threatening illnesses, prisoners and other essential workers, to start immediately afterwards.
Pillay said the first batch of the Pfizer vaccine, of which SA has ordered 20 million doses, was expected to arrive in March.
“Much larger quantities will arrive from April onwards.”
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