Health Minister Dr Zweli Mkhize says government remains committed to its original plan of vaccinating 40 million people, or 65% of the population, by the end of the year – but manufacturer delays could interrupt the process.
Responding to questions in parliament on Wednesday (10 March), Mkhize said that meeting the vaccination targets depends on vaccine doses being delivered by the manufacturing companies as per an agreed quarterly schedule.
The first target of inoculating 1.5 million people by the end of March is already going to be missed, as there is an insufficient supply of vaccines – while the country is only manging to vaccinate around 10,000 people a day.
Mkhize said the annual target is being reviewed as data comes in.
“We are still targeting many of the vaccines to be administered by the end of the year.
As we have indicated, we are mindful that some of the supplies can be delayed by the manufacturing companies.
“And therefore, we will be reviewing as we go to see whether that target needs to be altered or not. But in terms of our original plan, we would like to be able to vaccinate as many of those 40 million people by the end of the year,” he said.
Government has secured a total of 43 million doses through deals with from Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer and the Covax group.
However, just a fraction of these vaccines has been sent to the country, with the manufacturers operating on a quarterly basis for deliveries.
For the first quarter, which ends on 31 March, government has anticipated 500,000 doses of Johnson & Johnson and 600,000 doses from Pfizer. This makes it difficult to track annual targets, the health minister said.
“In other words, at the moment, all we can tell is that by this quarter, this is likely to be how much we will get,” said Mkhize.
“Once we have got the matter refined, we will be in a position to know month by month or even week by week supplies of what they will give us. That helps us with the planning of the vaccination programme.”
He said that government is expecting a further eight million doses between April and June,
which will be used to complete vaccination for healthcare workers and start phase two of the programme which will focus on at-risk groups
