Business lobby group, Business for South Africa, B4SA, has called on government to shift the emphasis of its vaccine programme to target the elderly and vulnerable sooner, to prevent hospitals being overrun during the expected third wave of COVID-19 infections.

South Africa is in the midst of its vaccination campaign targeting healthcare workers. Stavros Nicolaou, an executive of Aspen Pharmacare and who also serves as chairperson of the Public Health Workgroup at B4SA, says they have written to government on the matter.

Thus far only about 160 000 healthcare workers have been vaccinated, just 13% of the target to vaccinate 1.25-million people by the end of first quarter.

Source: SABC