The Health Department has now said that Johnson & Johnson vaccines, which will be used for teachers, will arrive on Friday. There has been no set date announced for when these vaccinations will begin but there are some predictions.
300 000 vaccines for teachers are expected to arrive in South Africa on Friday. This was announced during a Parliamentary Portfolio Committee meeting with the Department of Health.
Teachers along with school support staff will qualify to be vaccinated. Those who qualify to be vaccinated will include all school staff and not just those over 40.
After the 300 000 vaccines arrive, they will then need to go for quality testing at an NCL lab first and then be distributed to provinces from there. More vaccines are said to be arriving next week.
Some are predicting that these vaccinations will commence sometime next week.
There have however been concerns raised when it comes to the vaccine rollout for teachers. The National Professional Teachers' Organisation of South Africa (NAPTOSA) and the South African Democratic Teachers' Union (SADTU) have said that they are concerned about the number of Covid-19 vaccines earmarked for teachers.
SADTU's General Secretary, Mugwena Maluleke, is not satisfied and said:
We are extremely concerned as an organisation about the fact that the 500 000 doses promised couldn't be reached as a result of technical problems.
He continued to say that their concern lies with the current third wave and that they were relying on the vaccine to be the frontline defense for teachers. The Union wants transparency on when vaccinations will take place.
Aspen CEO, Stephen Saad, has reassured the country that large quantities of the J&J doses have already arrived in the country and 2 million doses would have arrived in South Africa within the next two weeks.
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