South Africa’s acting Health Minister Mmamoloko Kubayi on Friday said her government’s vaccination rollout programme was running smoothly in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng provinces despite last week’s unrest that hit the area, leaving 337 people dead and over 1,000 arrests.
The minister said this after nearly 50,000 doses of vaccines against coronavirus were lost during the unrest in the two provinces when they closed their operations down due to the violence and looting.
“All indications show that we are able to resume quickly. And I need to indicate that the disruption that we saw, is not only to the vaccine programme,” Kubayi said.
She added: “We are also getting reports that people who are on critical and who need chronic medication, people who regularly visit hospitals and clinics, were unable to do so. And this put their lives at risk even more.”
Meanwhile, some medical experts have dismissed reports that the Covid-19 vaccine was the cause of deaths among 28 South Africans.
The South African Health Products Regulatory Authority, which is probing this, said at this stage there was no evidence that the individuals died as a direct result of taking the vaccine.
However, Progressive Health Forum spokesperson Aslam Dasoo said it was important for people to understand the risks associated with being vaccinated.
“The vaccines that produce any adverse events would be in the first six months. And a year after taking it, is very rare,” Dr. Dasoo said.
“There is no long-term issue to concern ourselves with. If this was the case, we would be worried about giving childhood vaccines,” he added.
NM/jn/APA