Mpumalanga faces challenges in vaccination of teachers

The Mpumalanga Health Department has so far vaccinated about 30 000 of the 45 000 teachers in the province.

It says the roll-out programme experienced a few challenges as some teachers were unable to receive their vaccines as they were infected with the virus and others were under quarantine.

The department’s Spokesperson, Dumisani Malamule, says they are confident that all the teachers will be vaccinated soon.

“We are hoping that as time goes on we’ll vaccinate those teachers because we are now getting to the second phase of vaccinating teachers. Remember, there are those teachers who are not on PERSAL (Personal and Salary System )who are employed by the SGB (School Governing Body), we are now in a process of vaccinating those teachers and private teachers to make sure that everyone is vaccinated,”  says Malamule.

COVID-19 Vaccine rollout | Rollout for teaching staff begins in different provinces

COVID-19 cases

On Sunday, national health authorities reported 16 585 new COVID-19 cases in South Africa, which brings the total number of laboratory-confirmed cases to 2 062 896.

This increase represents a 30.2% positivity rate.

The Health Department also reported 333 COVID-19-related deaths, bringing total fatalities to 61 840.

The Gauteng province accounts for the majority of new cases (57%), followed by the Western Cape (11%), and the KwaZulu-Natal and Limpopo (7% each) provinces.

COVID-19 Vaccine rollout | Start of the education sector vaccine programme