As the social development sector kicks off its vaccination rollout plan on Monday, Social Development Minister Lindiwe Zulu has expressed her satisfaction with the first day of vaccination.

Zulu and Acting Health Minister, Mmamoloko Kubayi-Ngubane, visited the vaccination sites at Tembisa health care centre and Thokoza Progressive to unveil the social development sector vaccination rollout plan, which aims to vaccinate more than 240 000 members of the workforce from 19 July to 23 July 2021.

Zulu said the department has to cater for not only the Early Childhood Development (ECD), but all other social development service professionals because they are also frontline workers.

“We have been working together with the Department of Health from the very beginning. The other issue is about the availability of the vaccines, [as] we needed to make sure that when we start, the vaccine is available. They are now [using the single-dose vaccine]… so they don’t have to come back again,” Zulu said.

The Minister said the process of vaccination is very smooth, from the people who are administering the vaccine, to the process of registration and ensuring that they have the tech tools needed to check the ID number and telephone number of the person vaccinated.

“So far, we haven’t seen any challenges… The ECDs and social service practitioners have their own queue, which is the entire value chain of what they need to do.

“…After having done the vaccination, people sit for 15 minutes just to ensure that they are fine, and if they are not fine, there is an emergency area where they can be taken to,” Zulu said.

Source: South African Government News Agency