The City of Johannesburg’s Health Department has been forced to destroy an unspecified amount of critical vaccines at the Westbury clinic in Johannesburg.
This was due to a power failure caused by cable theft.
The department says the vaccines must be stored in refrigerators at stipulated temperatures, but the fridges were affected by the power failure.
It says the generator, which serves as a back-up power supply system, could not kick in because of the interference with the electricity cables.
The Department’s Dominic Mahlangu says the clinic is being restocked with new vaccines.
“Our vaccines must be kept in a particular temperature in our fridges … with the power out the whole night and in the morning when the staff came in we did not want to take any chances. So we had to destroy unfortunately a number of vaccines that were kept in the fridges. And this has a direct impact in the community that uses that clinic,” adds Mahlangu.
