We will be monitoring rollout of Covid-19 vaccines, say political parties

Political parties are keenly waiting the first batch of Covid-19 vaccines, a shipment of 1.5 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine, scheduled to arrive in the country on Monday.

The vaccines are earmarked for some 1.25 million frontline healthcare workers, Health Minister Dr. Zweli Mkhize told South Africans, this week.

Mkhize said the doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine, developed by the Oxford University and AstraZeneca and produced by the Serum Institute of India, would leave India on Sunday, through Dubai, and arrive in South Africa on Monday.

However, Mkhize said that the vaccines would first have to go through strict quality assurance and stock control over a period of 10 to 14 days, before they are distributed across the country’s nine provinces.

The first doses of the vaccine are arriving at the time South Africa is already battling a second wave. The cumulative number of Covid-19 cases in the country on Saturday stood at 1 449 236 and the death toll at 43 951.

The National Education, Health and Allied Workers’ Union’s (Nehawu) General Secretary Zola Saphetha welcomed Mkhize’s announcement of the arrival of the vaccines. “The vaccine arrives at a time when healthcare workers are losing their lives to the virus at an alarming rate. Last week, Nehawu lost 12 members in one week to the virus at the Edendale hospital, in Pietermaritzburg. The government needs to move with speed with the inoculation in order to avert the loss of more healthcare workers,” Saphetha said.

UDM leader Bantu Holomisa also welcomed the arrival of the 1.5 million doses of the vaccine, albeit he said, that this was not enough, as it would not be able to cover the country’s front-line healthcare workers.

It’s welcomed, thanks to the noise made by the citizens of this country when it was said that this thing would be available in the second half or quarter of the year. I was one of the people who made noise then to say why have they been sitting on their laurels.

So we welcome it although it’s a drop in the ocean, because if it’s 1.5 million doses divided by the two jabs, then it’s about 750 000, and it won’t even address the issue of frontline workers because they have to get the jab twice. So, it’s too little, but at least there is a start,” Holomisa said.

In other news – Simphiwe Dana under fire after revealing what she demands her housemaid to do

Simphiwe Dana is a musical legend but through a consequence of the lockdown, she has turned into a homemaker, re-purpose DIY queen, and a studio owner.

While she might be all of the aforementioned, it seems that the “Bamako” musician is also just as much a diva in the household, as she is suggested to be when she is set to perform in large stages. Learn more

Source: IOL

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