Questions surround Gauteng Covid-19 vaccine rollout
The Gauteng Health Department plans to vaccinate over 10 million people for Covid-19 when the vaccine is rolled out in the province.
The CEO of Medical Supplies Depot Dumisani Malele says phase one of the rollout would see healthcare workers vaccinated against the virus.
Phase one would be divided into four categories.
Category one would be those conducting and generating procedure; incubation, ventilation and capturing of Covid-19 specimen.
"Category two; are those in direct contact with known or suspected Covid-19 patients.
"Category three; those in contact with patients who are not known or suspected to have Covid-19 and Category four; are those who are not in contact with patients," said Malele.
He added the second phase of the vaccination drive would include essential workers such as teachers, people living in shelters such as old-age homes and prisons.
This phase, he explained, would include people over the age of 60 years. The fourth phase would include everyone over the age of 18.
Malele admitted that the province still does not know how many people would have to be vaccinated during phase two and three.
"Where we are still coming with ways is people over 18 with comorbidities, you can go to medical aids to get this information and, that is why collaboration is important... over people over the age of 60 we can go to home affairs to get this information," said Malele.
While the province is expected to receive the vaccine by the end of this week, it also does not have information on a possible distributor.
"In term of the distribution company, this matter was handled by the National Department of Health, the province was not involved so the details are with the National Department of Health," said Malele.
He said if the vaccine is delivered this week, the department would start with vaccination processes on the 1st of February.
It is not clear how many doses of the vaccine the province would be receiving.
"What we still we don't know yet is, is out of a million what is the percentage of those dosages that will be given to the province," said Head of Department Lesiba Malotana.
