In a public notice, the Western Cape Health Department stated that fewer vaccines were received this week which has impacted some of the Covid-19 vaccination sites. This comes after the province surpassed the one-million mark in its vaccination drive.
According to News24, the province’s health department mentioned that the addition of new age groups to the vaccination programme had caused a surge in demand for jabs.
“We have seen enormous excitement and eagerness for people to get vaccinated. We appreciate the uptake of registration and vaccination. We have seen, as new age bands are added, that this causes excitement and increased demand for vaccination, which is a positive sign,” the department said in a statement.
In the same vein, the Head of the Provincial Health Department Dr Keith Cloete said this week’s vaccine supply for the Cape did not meet the current demand, as EWN reports.
“This week, the supply is still a bit constrained so there is more demand for vaccines than the supply allowed. So, what we’re doing is prioritising people that have appointments for the second doses, and if you’re over 60, we prioritise people over 60.
“It’s either Friday or Saturday that we will have an increased amount of Pfizer doses. It will be over 90,000, but in addition to that, we are expecting Johnson & Johnson doses. So as of next week Tuesday, there should be a significant amount of additional doses in our system to be able to increase the number of vaccinations we offer per day,” Dr Cloete said.