Private sector hails ‘successful week’ of phase 2 vaccination drive
South Africa’s private sector says phase 2 of the Covid-19 vaccine drive has been widely successful.
The country kicked off the second phase on Monday, targeting the elderly population.
In 5 days, less than 200 sites were online to administer the Pfizer jabs to some 117 000 people.
On Friday, Business For South Africa’s (B4SA) Martin Kingston hailed the joint efforts of the public and private sector.
“There’s more that still needs to be done so obviously we need to keep uptake momentum and pace and the breadth of the vaccination programme.
“One of our key drives is getting as many people as possible to register.”
Discovery Health's chief commercial officer Ronald Whelan admits there were teething problems, including glitches in the registration portal at some sites and supply chain challenges.
“I’m delighted to let you know that the first week has gone pretty well in our opinion. There have of course been the operational challenges as we’ve navigated this first week but whenever you’re setting up an operation of this scale and magnitude, you expect to see some operational challenges,” says Whelan.
“The big point for us is that we need to scale up vaccination quickly.”
Overall the country hopes to build up enough capacity to vaccinate 193 000 per day by June.
Whelan adds the procurement of vaccines from global manufacturers remains a national effort, with government driving the process.
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