Vaccine arrives at General Justice Gizenga Hospital for frontline health workers in KwaDukuza

As the fight against the pandemic gets underway, frontline health workers at the General Justice Gizenga Mpanza Regional Hospital (formerly Stanger hospital) were the first on the North Coast to be vaccinated against Covid-19 on Wednesday, March 3.

The province received 10 800 of the first batch of 80 000 Johnson & Johnson (J&J) vaccine doses that arrived in the country from Belgium on February 16.

Prince Mshiyeni Hospital in Umlazi, received 5 760 vaccine doses while the remaining 5 040 were allocated to the Inkosi Albert Luthuli Academic Hospital.

Provincial authorities said that these facilities had been prioritised given the high number of regional infections.

The second batch, also reserved for frontline healthcare workers, arrived in the country on February 27 and consists of 80 000 J&J vaccines from Belgium, now pushing the total number of doses received to 160 000.

The government’s target is to vaccinate 67% of the population by the end of 2021.

Phase 1 is focus on the country’s healthcare workers, while phase 2 will focus on essential workers, persons in congregate settings, prison inmates, persons over the age of 60 and persons with co-morbidities who are over the age of 18.

Phase 3 will target about 22 500 000 South Africans, and will be administered to persons older than 18 years of age.

KZN premier Sihle Zikalala said the benefits of the J&J vaccine included a 57% protection against moderate to severe infection with the new variant of Covid-19, and an 85% protection against severe Covid-19 infection.

There were no safety concerns established from the trials.

Zikalala said so far 15 400 KZN healthcare workers had contracted Covid-19 and 323 had died, which was why it was important to start the vaccination programme with them.

“We believe that this rollout programme will lead to many lives being saved, and that it will speed up our ultimate return to normalcy,” he said.