‘Vaccines don’t kill’: Church leader gets jab to reassure churchgoers

SA has too much vaccine
Nearly 290,000 health workers have already received the J&J vaccine. (GCIS)

The Vice President of the South African Council of Churches, Reverend Frank Chikane, received his COVID-19 jab at Esangweni Community Health Care Centre in Tembisa.

He said that, as a leader, he wanted to lead by example and show people that vaccines do not kill.

“We decided that, as leaders within the Council of Churches, we should actually show the way. We should go first. We should show that vaccines don’t kill, they help you,” said Chikane.

Phase two of the vaccination programme

South Africa officially started the phase two of its COVID-19 rollout on 17 May targeting the elderly who are 60 years of age and older. People who have registered on the Electronic Vaccine Data System receive a confirmation SMS with their vaccination site and date.

Minister of Health, Zweli Mkhize announced on Sunday night that South Africa had received 975 780 Pfizer vaccine doses and is expecting to receive a total of 1.3 million Pfizer jabs by the end of the month. Another 3 million Johnson and Johnson doses are expected to arrive by the end of June.

In preparation for phase two, over 85 sites had been set up across the country, with more than 2.1 million registered citizens.

Vaccination side-effects ‘negligible’

Rev Chikane said that people need to remember that the world evolved with vaccines.

“If there are any people that are having side effects, it’s a negligible fraction of people who do so. We want to say to people that we all grew up with vaccines,” he said.

Gauteng MEC for Human Settlements, Urban Planning, Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs, Lebogang Maile joined the health workers of the JJ Clinic in Soshanguve and FF Ribeiro Clinic in Pretoria to give support to all workers and encourage citizens to get vaccinated.

‘All systems go’

“We have been to two sites here in the inner city and Soshanguve. So far we are happy with what we have seen. It’s all systems go! Everything is on track. Resources that are required are there. The staff seems to be very organized. We are happy,” said Maile.

He added: “It took us weeks to get where we are and there have been people working behind the scenes.” – Health-e News

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