It’s going to be easier than ever for residents and holidaymakers in and around Port Alfred and Makhanda to get up to date with their Covid vaccinations this festive season. The Department of Health’s VW Vaxxers are about to hit town at pop-up sites from Bushmans to Bathurst, Alexandria to Alicedale as they push this corner of the Eastern Cape closer to the 70% vaccination rate scientists say we need to get the better of the pandemic.
Four additional vaccinators and a data capturer have been brought in to boost the Department of Health’s Makana Subdistrict vaccinators over the next three months. The team will be setting up and operating pop-up vaccination sites throughout this period. Three VW Vaxxers will be based in Makana Municipality and one will work with a team in Ndlambe.
“We want to make it as easy as possible for people to get vaccinated,” said Subdistrict head of health, Mohamed Docrat. “The plan is to go to where people are, so they don’t have to interrupt what they’re doing, or make complicated plans to get to a vaccination site.”
Shopping centres, taverns and other popular spots are where you can expect to see them and while it’s helpful if you pre-register on the EVDS (electronic vaccination data system), you can also register at the pop-up.
While anyone eligible to be vaccinated is welcome at the pop-up sites (as well as the permanent sites), the team will particularly be targeting younger people. Latest available vaccination stats for the area show that the lowest vaccination rate is among the 18-34 age group. Just over half of 23 874 people targeted in that age group are fully vaccinated.
In order to stabilize infections and serious illness, the national Department of Health is aiming for a 70% vaccination rate. In September 2021, Deputy President David Mabuza said the country was on track to vaccinate 70% of South Africans before the end of the year. However, the covidvaxlive vaccination tracker reports that on 8 December 2021, 25.46% of the country’s population is fully vaccinated.
The Makana municipal area has somewhat bucked the national trend.
Vaccination targets refer to 70% of the population within an age group. For Makana, the 50-59 and 60-plus age groups reflect a 105% fully vaccinated population – an anomaly caused partly by the fact that vaccinations are recorded according to where a vaccine comes from. In other words, if a team from Makana conducts a community outreach campaign in Alexandria using vaccines from the Settlers Hospital supply, the vaccinations will be recorded for Makana.
The 34-49 age groups reflects a respectable 84% fully vaccinated rate in Makana.
The 18-34 group is at 54% and so it’s this group that will be the main focus of the campaign.
Meanwhile, while many are yet to receive their first shot, the South African Health Products Authority (SAHPRA) on Wednesday approved the distribution of the third dose of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine for adults. This means all adults in South Africa are now eligible for a booster shot six months after the second dose. SAPHRA says Pfizer booster shots will available from January 2022.
According to Pfizer and BioNtech, three doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine neutralise the Omicron variant (B.1.1.529 lineage). Omicron is a fast-spreading variant first identified by South African scientists.
SmilingSouth 