First published by GroundUp
“We call on the Department of Health to act urgently, transparently and decisively now to obtain vaccines and to implement vaccination, so as to reduce death and illness, and bring the pandemic under control.” So reads a letter started by Professor Heather Zar, a leading public sector paediatrician at Cape Town’s Red Cross Children’s Hospital.
Over 2,500 people had signed the petition by the time of publication of this article. Many are well-known doctors, nurses and researchers, including Professor Francois Venter, former head of the Southern African HIV Clinicians Society, Professor Ntobeko Ntusi, Head of the Department of Medicine at Groote Schuur Hospital, Professor Lucille Blumberg of the National Institute of Communicable Diseases and Professor Helen McShane of Oxford University.
Image: ReutersGovernment
Head of South Africa’s Ministerial Advisory Committee on coronavirus vaccine development, Professor Barry Schoub, has cautioned that vaccines are not an immediate miracle cure.
Schoub says it will be sometime before South Africans develop immunity to the virus.
“Once the vaccines arrive on our doorstep that’s not the end, it’s not going to switch of the epidemic, those first tranches will go to protect healthcare workers almost no effect on the population as such then there’s go to be the immunisation of the population universal immunisiation thats gonna take a long time, it’s gonna take months and months before we try and achieve herd immunity. “