A recent media report in TimesLIVE (8th April 2021) quotes the National Health Minister, Dr. Zweli Mkhize, as saying that “one of the glaring lessons highlighted by the COVID-19 pandemic is the urgent need for universal health coverage (UHC) to ensure no-one is left behind”. Further “the implementation of National Health Insurance (NHI) is seen as a critical intervention that will assist in restructuring the core components of the health system”. In his opinion central structures such as the Coronavirus Command Council and the Ministerial Advisory Committees created during the pandemic to support governance were able to foster confidence in the interventions proposed and implemented especially those that required a…
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The COVID-19 jab is here … but not for everyone
In mid-January 2021, I wrote a post entitled “Successful Healthcare Delivery … a missing link could be logistics” and at that time I referred to the then stated target of vaccinating 67% of the South African population by at the latest the end of 2021. It has now been admitted that the country will be unable to achieve this target and at best achieve a target of 40% by February 2022, as implementation has “lost a little time”, far removed from the “herd immunity” referred to by the Minister of Health earlier. While the inability of South Africa to procure vaccines due to “richer countries hogging vaccine supplies” and the…