The Covid-19 pandemic dealt a severe blow to the tuberculosis response in the Free State, but the province’s health department plans to get their TB response back on track.
As in the rest of the country, the Covid-19 pandemic dealt a severe blow to the tuberculosis response in the Free State. Spotlight gathered the available data and asked the province’s health department about its plans to get the TB response back on track. As in the rest of the country, the Co.
On Sunday evening, Free State MEC for Health Montseng Tsiu said the Free State was ready to begin with Phase 2 of the national vaccination programme. “We have two vaccination sites in two different districts which are Thabo Mofutsanyana and Mangaung, she said during a National Department of Health briefing.
But on Monday and Tuesday, Mangaung was rocked by service delivery protests.
“The mass vaccination was badly affected by the protests in Mangaung which is one of the two districts identified to launch the programme,” provincial Department of Health spokesperson Mondli Mvambi told
Spotlight. “The violent element of the protest prevented the vaccination programme to launch in the district because people could not get to work as there was a total shutdown. Cars were stoned, people in the streets were beaten so no one could work,” he said.