Ramaphosa announces new committee to oversee COVID-19 vaccine rollout
President Cyril Ramaphosa has announced that an inter-ministerial committee has been established to preside over the rollout of the COVID-19 vaccine.
Ramaphosa was addressing the ANC Progressive Business Forum yesterday.
He's also dashed the hopes of business wanting to get a piece of the action saying there won't be too many opportunities for them during the rollout which is at a scale government has not seen before.
"We see this as a major project, this will be so big in that we will have to reach more than 40 million people, in fact, this will be the first time where the world cup will not amount to that, the National election and provincial and local elections don't even get near this. This will be a massive project where we have to reach out to more than 40 million people at one set time."
Meanwhile, The Health Department says there'll be three phases of the COVID-19 vaccine distribution.
READ: Lockdown day 300, SA records 839 COVID-19 deaths
The department announced this yesterday during a virtual ANC business forum event on the vaccine rollout plan.
The ministry's technical advisor on the National Health Insurance, Dr Aquina Thulare says healthcare workers will be first in line.
"Phase one, which will be starting at the end of this month, beginning of February. It is where we will be going to look at healthcare workers, targeting a population of 1.25 million. This will also include traditional health practitioners."
"Phase two is going to include essential workers, we are going to looking at persons who are above 60 years, and above 18 years but who have co-mobilities. Phase three we are going to be looking at other people above 18 years of age and the target population is about 2.5 million," she adds.
She says their plan is to reach 65% of the South African population. She's also revealed that government has secured different kinds of vaccines. Some people will get two doses while others will get one.
