The Eastern Cape department of health plans to rope in sangomas and pastors to ramp up its campaign to have at least 70% of the province's eligible population vaccinated by December 2022.
On Thursday, the department announced that more than two million people in the province were now fully vaccinated.
The number represents just over 40% of the people in the province.
The department’s chief director for communicable diseases, Miyakazi Nokwe, told DispatchLIVE that the department would be training sangomas and herbalists on information pertaining to vaccination.
“Our approach now is to ensure that at every level of the community we encourage people to get vaccinated.
“We know that a lot of our people consult traditional health practitioners.
“If we use and empower them, our people will take confidence and vaccinate,” Nokwe said.
She said the department planned to use church centres to encourage church followers to vaccinate.
“We want to use church centres as pop-up sites for vaccinations. Everybody listens to the minister.
“We want a sustainable way of continuing with the vaccination programme,” Nokwe said.
Reverand Lulama Ntshingwa of the SA Council of Churches in the Eastern Cape said they supported the idea of getting churches involved in the vaccination drive.
“We have been working with the department encouraging people to get vaccinated. We believe in the vaccine,” Ntshingwa said.
Kidwell Matshotyana, chief director for clinical support services, said they wanted to build a resilient health system, so the next pandemic did not compromise health services.
“We are no longer looking at Covid-19 as an isolated programme, but part of our programmes,” Matshotyana said.
Provincial health spokesperson Sizwe Kupelo said the Alfred Nzo, Joe Gqabi and OR Tambo districts had received a R37.5m donation from the Solidarity Fund for the vaccine booster drive, used to recruit 179 professional nurses and 116 enrolled nursing assistants.
DispatchLIVE
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