South Africa: Pop-up vaccination centres boost number of jabs

At the busy taxi stand close to Soweto's Chris Hani Baragwanath sanatorium, a medical expert with a megaphone referred to as out to commuters, calling them to return and get a COVID-19 vaccination.

Olekantse Serati was one of the dozens of people who decided to get jabs on Friday.

“It is a good thing that they’ve brought the vaccines to us here at the Bara taxi rank so we don’t have to go the vaccination centres or hospitals,” said Serati, adding: "It's also good that you can receive the jab quick and be on your way home straight after.”

The Johnson & Johnson jabs were given at the pop-up middle as a part of South Africa's efforts to reinforce flagging vaccination numbers.

“We realized that many people are too busy, they do not have time to go to our vaccine sites, so we brought the vaccine to the people," Zodwa Malamule, the manager of the Soweto clinic, said.

Confronted with slowing numbers of human beings getting COVID-19 vaccinations, South Africa has also opened eligibility to all adults to step up the volume of inoculations because it battles a surge within the disease driven by means of the delta variant.

The country on Friday started offering jabs to everyone aged 18 and older as the volume of jabs given per day has stalled even though vaccines are now more widely available.

Less than 200,000 jabs are being given per day, down from 250,000 earlier this month and significantly lower than the target of 300,000 that the government had hoped to achieve by this time.

to reinforce the flagging numbers fitness officials determined to offer jabs to the younger adults immediately, in preference to waiting until September as were planned in advance.

The vaccination drive comes as the country is battling a resurgence of COVID-19.

In the last 24 hours, South Africa has recorded more than 13,000 new COVID-19 infections, including 317 deaths. Nearly 80,000 people in South Africa have died from the disease in the pandemic, according to official figures, but the actual number of deaths from COVID-19 is estimated to be nearly three times that amount, according to statistics showing the country's average death rates.

Image: Denis Farrell/Copyright 2021 The Associated Press. All rights reserved

South Africa has so far vaccinated extra than 10 million people, of which more than 4.6 million are fully vaccinated, both via the one dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine or with two doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech. It aims to inoculate 40 million people through February 2022.

After being hindered by a scarcity of vaccines, South Africa now has a good enough supply, broadly speaking from doses it has purchased itself and helped by way of a donation through the U.S. of almost 6 million Pfizer-BioNTech doses.

Whilst the authorities have partially attributed the reluctance to vaccinate on incorrect information about vaccines, a new study at has indicated that vaccine appeal among South Africans has accelerated.

According to the study, conducted by the University of Johannesburg and the Human Science Research Council between June and July this year, 72% of adults accept that vaccines are good to get.

At the pop-up inoculation centre in Soweto, Nomvelo Hadebe, took advantage of vaccinations now being offered to people 18 and older.

She said she had wanted to get a shot earlier but was not eligible because inoculations were limited to people 35 and older. As soon as South Africa opened eligibility to everyone 18 years and older, she wasted no time.

“I’m 22 years old and this feels like a relief because I’ve been wanting to get vaccinated," said Hadebe. "This is a great initiative ... They say prevention is better than cure, so I feel like this is the best decision for my health and well-being.”