Metro calls on healthcare workers to register for Covid-19 vaccine

Despite reports that the AstraZeneca vaccine might not be as effective as hoped against a new strain of the Covid-19 virus, the municipality was going ahead with plans for several vaccination sites across Tshwane.

Twenty-four clinics, including those in Centurion, are among the 73 primary healthcare facilities which have been identified as vaccination sites in the area, according to Tshwane mayor Randall Williams on Monday.

Williams also called on healthcare workers, both public and private, to register for the Covid-19 vaccine.

The Tshwane metro this week started preparations to forge ahead with the first phase of the vaccine roll-out, once it got the greenlight from national government.

“Healthcare workers are on the frontlines in the battle against Covid-19,” said Williams.

“It is therefore important they must be empowered to do their work safely.

“The metro is participating in the Gauteng roll-out plan to ensure there is effective coordination between all of the relevant stakeholders in the vaccine distribution,” he said.

According to him, the district Covid-19 coordination committee was driving the process.

“When the time comes, we will be ready,” he said.

The committee had reportedly already nominated 196 staff members, which would be trained as vaccinators while “many” healthcare workers had already been trained.

The second part of their training was said to be ongoing.

Williams further said the metro made progress in finding and securing venues where vaccinations would take place.

He said that all public healthcare workers would be vaccinated at their workplace.

A total of 22 000 vaccines would be needed to adequately cover the number of public healthcare personnel in the metro.

“Our vaccine planning and coordinating team is also continuously engaging with all relevant stakeholders both nationally and provincially,” Williams said.

Their planning also included so-called electronic vaccination data system registration, data collection and verification.

“We must ensure that we continuously share information with the public on the vaccination roll-out so that we track and monitor our progress,” he said.

Education about the vaccine would be held in the weeks to come, he said.

This comes amid recent developments that could see the roll-out of the AstraZeneca vaccine being halted after its arrival in the country last week.

Health minister Zweli Mkhize told the media on Sunday that the AstraZeneca vaccine, which was procured, might not have the same efficacy against the mutated Covid-19 501Y.V2 variant predominant in South Africa.

During the briefing, professor Shabir Madhi, who led the clinical trial of the vaccine candidate locally, said the vaccine showed “tremendous potential” – that is, until the new variant of the virus started spreading towards the end of October last year.

Initially, participants in the trial showed a 75% less likelihood of becoming infected by the virus.

However, a spanner was thrown in the works when the new variant emerged and spread rapidly throughout the country.

A study then showed that “much of the antibody induced by the vaccine was not actually active against the [new] variant”.

The study also showed a “substantial drop” in the vaccine’s ability to neutralise the activity of the virus when it was tested in the lab.

“When we analysed individuals in terms of how well the vaccine worked against the variant, there was very little difference between the vaccine group and the placebo group,” Madhi said.

Professor Salim Abdool Karim, one the country’s experts on the virus, said this latest finding did not spell “doom and gloom”.

He said vaccines made by Pfizer and Moderna appeared to do “reasonably well” against the new variant.

He further said the next generation of vaccines were intended to be much broader and would provide immunity to current and future variants, even though they would “take a little longer to develop”.

“We can still proceed with our roll-out, but we need to do it wisely by taking a stepped approach,” Karim said.

The roll-out of the vaccine would, however, have to be temporarily put on hold.

Healthcare workers could access the vaccination registration form from vaccine.enroll.health.gov.za while enquiries could be directed to evds.hcwselfregistration@health.gov.za.

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