Free vacination model advances the ideals of Universal Health Coverage: Mkhize

Government is enthusiastic about the free vacination model because it advances the ideals of Universal Health Coverage, and will provide an opportunity to learn as SA prepares for the implementation of the National Health Insurance. This is according to Minister of Health, Dr Zwelini Mkhize, who addressed parliament today during the debate on the State of the Nation Address (SONA).

The Minister said that the world’s hope now lies in an effective Covid-19 vaccination campaign that will achieve population immunity across the world, “for it will be useless if one country achieves population immunity while others are left behind.”

To ensure that the battle against the pandemic remains grounded on the principles of “solidarity and compassion”, government’s strategy is that the State will be the sole purchaser of the vaccines for the country, irrespective of the manufacturer and source, he added.

“The vaccines will be predominantly funded by the fiscus whilst the private sector, in particular private health funders, will augment the funding and other resources required to implement the programme. As such, vaccination will be free at the point of care and no citizen should pay out of pocket when they get inoculated.

“As government we are actively engaging manufacturers and suppliers of the COVID-19 vaccines through different but interrelated channels. These include the COVAX facility, bilateral arrangements with pharmaceutical manufacturers and other mechanisms such as the African Union’s Vaccines Financing Strategy and the Vaccine Acquisition Task Team. These initiatives have, to-date allowed us to engage with the manufacturers of multiple vaccines, namely AstraZeneca, Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, Moderna, Sinopharm, Sinovac, and the Sputnik V. Recently, we have been in discussion with Cuba to engage them on the development of their candidate vaccine.”

The Minister said that goverment has heard “the clarion call” made by the people of South Africa to accelerate the country’s capacity to develop and manufacture its own COVID-19 tools, including vaccines.

“It is for this reason that we have been engaging our BRICS partners and the government of Cuba to collaborate in a technology sharing exercise that will see us advancing towards independence and self reliance in a future where there will be more public health threats.

“The recent announcement around the limited efficacy of the AstraZeneca vaccine, which we had already procured ,was certainly disappointing, however we were determined not to be derailed from our commitment to rollout vaccines in February.”

The Minister confirmed that the vaccines have not expired and that the expiry date of April 31 was established through its quality control processes. “A wrong impression was created that the vaccines had expired: this is simply not true.”

The Minister also categorically refuted the speculation in media that SA has returned the stock to India as this was not the case. The Astra Zeneca doses purchased have been offered to the African Union platform, of which SA is a part, and the AU will distribute to those countries who have already expressed interest in acquiring the stock. “Therefore please be assured there will be no wasteful and fruitless expenditure,”the Minister added.

With regard to the future role of Astra Zeneca- and all vaccines for that matter- SA continues to be guided by the Ministerial Advisory Committee and experts, and remains committed to an approach that is led by science and is rational in its implementation, he said.

“As announced by the President, we have managed to successfully secure 9 million doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, with the delivery of the first batch of 80,000 on course and the vaccination due to begin this week.

“His Excellency the President will announce the date and time of the first vaccinations. Critically, an additional 500,000 doses are expected to arrive over the next four weeks, supplemented by another 20 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine that is expected to be received at the end of March 2021.”

The Minister stated that SA has actually secured enough doses to vaccinate all the people who will need to be vaccinated in the country.

“I would like to take the opportunity of settling the matter of the Johnson and Johnson vaccine rollout because it must be understood that our sole purpose is to save lives and protect our healthcare workers.

“Firstly, it is without dispute that the Johnson and Johnson vaccine has a 57% efficacy against the 501Y.V2 variant and is fully protective against serious illness or death. On this basis, Johnson and Johnson is applying for Emergency Use Authorization and it is expected that it will be granted. With this evidence in hand, we will begin by vaccinating our health care workers with the Johnson and Johnson vaccine.”

The Minister expalined that this will be donw under a protocol dubbed as SISONKE. The protocol will allow government to monitor the vaccination of health care workers and will further add to its understanding of the impact of mass vaccination.

The immediate rollout of phase one vaccination with Johnson and Johnson through the SISONKE protocol has been made possible by the fact that the 300 000 doses of the now proven and efficacious Johnson and Johnson vaccine were already tested and approved by SAHPRA for use under study conditions, the Minister said.

“It was the quick thinking of the leadership at MRC that brought us this solution when we were faced with this issue. This was smart thinking which is worthy of celebration and I must thank the team at the Medical Research Council led Professor Glenda Gray, the officials at the National Department of Health led by the director General Dr. Sandile Buthelezi and Johnson and Johnson for essentially working a miracle to ensure that our plans are not derailed.”

On 3 February 2021 the government launched the registration portal for the vaccinations campaign and around 380 000 healthcare workers have registered in just under 2 weeks.

“We salute the health care workers who have chosen vaccination for their own protection and the protection of their colleagues, families and community members. We continue to call on all frontline health workers to register on the portal. We are ready to implement an efficient service for the rollout of the first batch.”

Government has identified 20 vaccination centres in all nine provinces to inoculate 80 000 health care workers over the next two weeks. 164 vaccinators will vaccinate approximately 48 clients a day – that is about 6-7 clients an hour.

“As more doses arrive the service will be ramped up accordingly to ensure that we maintain a good rate of daily vaccines. To help us overcome the vaccine hesitancy and increase confidence we are calling on all leaders in all sectors of our society (government, business, labour, political, traditional,faith-based, civil society, arts, sports, music, transport, traditional healer, and all sectors in our society) to stand ready to lead from the front by availing themselves to be vaccinated early as and when they are requested,” the Minister said.