Western Cape Health Dept trying any and all means to get people vaccinated against COVID

The Western Cape Health Department says it’s tried any and all means possible to get as many people vaccinated against COVID-19.

The department’s chief of operations, Dr Saadiq Kariem, says people are no longer showing up at vaccination sites for primary jabs or booster shots.

More than eight million doses of the Pfizer vaccine are due to expire by the end of October and at risk of being destroyed if not administered.

Dr Kariem said that the department had been forced to evolve its vaccination campaign.

“Eighty percent of vaccination sites have been pivoted into our normal vaccination programme. In other words, when they arrive at the clinic or hospital, we say ‘have you had your COVID vaccine? can we do your vaccine for you right now while you are here?’ We have a whole lot of outreach programmes too – we have re-established our vaxi taxi, which is a mobile vaccination service,” Kariem explained.

He says in order to keep the pandemic at bay, booster shots, especially for more vulnerable populations, are highly recommended.

“Why waste vaccinations when in fact people can be boosted and should be boosted? We’ve spoken before about the waning effect of the vaccines and we know that the vaccine does wane over time, so for the foreseeable future people will probably have to keep on taking boosters.”

According to Our World in Data, South Africa’s fully-vaccinated population stands at 33% as of September 2022.

That places the country far behind the initial target of 70%, which was set at the start of the vaccination drive last year.