The Western Cape is currently training 414 vaccinators to be placed at vaccination sites across the province.
This was announced at a digicon with officials yesterday as the province reached the 10 000 Covid-19 death mark.
The training will include a three-hour podcast, available via online link or flash drive to vaccinators, team managers and support staff.
There will also be weekly updates with content experts, with either an entire team including vaccinators, team managers and support staff or one member of the Covid-19 vaccine team that would in turn update the rest of the team members.
Vaccines were expected to arrive in the province within the next two weeks.
“Vaccination sites must all be accredited. (We) have to identify specific vaccinators for each site. They need to be trained because they also need to be accredited,” head of Health Dr Keith Cloete said.
As of yesterday the Western Cape had recorded 17 718 active Covid-19 infections with a total of 264 360 confirmed infections.
The province said it had conducted a staff readiness rapid poll about the vaccine with 1 680 participants.
On whether or not they would take the vaccine, 913 responded yes, 322 said no and 445 said maybe.
“Getting to a yes is about building credibility and trust that the information about the vaccines is credible, from credible sources,” Cloete said.
“We have developed an implementation framework for the roll-out programme – which will be posted on the Western Cape Government: Health website.
’’In the Western Cape, the department of health has accepted responsibility for the distribution of vaccines within the province.
’’The distribution will be undertaken by our Central Medical Depot to Western Cape Government Health facilities, private sector facilities and City of Cape Town facilities,” said Cloete.
The department confirmed the Western Cape had passed the peak of the second wave with clear and consistent signs of decline in cases.
Meanwhile, the South African Health Products Regulatory Authority (Sahpra) has announced it will allow a controlled, compassionate use of Ivermectin to treat Covid-19.
The health product regulator says it will unveil the access protocols for the drug in the coming days.
“The approach we will be taking going forward is that we will facilitate a controlled, compassionate, access programme for Ivermectin.
“This does not mean our position changes around the lack of availability of scientific data, but we had to have very in-depth discussions around the context which we find ourselves in,” said Sahpra chief executive Dr Boitumelo Semete-Makokotlela.