By PHEPHILE MOTAU | 2021-04-07

THE ministry of health has partnered with Luke Commission for accelerated vaccination in the communities. This is according to a statement by the Minister of Health Lizzie Nkosi yesterday. She said the partnership was based on TLC's comparative advantage of having worked in communities providing essential care to the elderly through mobile outreach services; providing prevention and care for people living with HIV and AIDS and providing services for COVID-19 from testing to critical care services. Nkosi said partnership is one of the key pillars of the successful implementation of the National COVID-19 Vaccination Deployment Plan (NVDP) as they race against time in the rollout of the COVID-19 vaccine. The minister said she was pleased to update the nation of the good progress made in the COVID-19 vaccination rollout in the country. "The vaccination rollout, as outlined in the National COVID-19 Vaccination Deployment Plan (NVDP), started with health care workers for a period of one week, after which the elderly and those with comorbidities followed in the ensuing week," Nkosi said She added that currently, the vaccination of health care workers was running concurrently with that of the elderly and those with comorbidities (Phase 1A and B) of the NVDP. Nkosi said the vaccination of health care workers, as already stated, was progressing well with observed increase in coverage. Encouragingly, large numbers of elderly people turned out in specific tinkhundla vaccination areas to receive the vaccine, the minister said. She said the strategy being employed was to begin by covering the tinkhundla surrounding urban areas; which had been found to be hotspots in the previous waves of the pandemic. Nkosi said other tinkhundla would follow as more vaccines arrived in the country. "Currently, 21 out of 59 (36 per cent) tinkhundla have been reached for COVID-19 vaccination. Disaggregation by region shows that both Shiselweni and Manzini had six, while Hhohho had five and Lubombo four tinkhundla reached. The statistics the age group with the highest number of people vaccinated was between 60 and 64, as they made up over 4 000 of the total of 20 262 who have been vaccinated. Meanwhile, Ludzeludze Inkhundla recorded the highest number of people vaccinated, with over 900 clients.

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