Pretoria - Staff in the higher education sector will in two weeks be informed about their turn to receive vaccination against Covid-19.
This was said by Minister Dr Blade Nzimande yesterday during his visit to the University of Pretoria’s vaccination site, where he also got his second shot of the Pfizer vaccine.
Nzimande told a gathering of university employees, including vice-chancellor and Principal Professor Tawana Kupe that he required the institution’s Professor Ramneek Ahluwalia to come up with a strategy for vaccinating the sector.
“I hope that in the next week or two we will be able to talk about how we start vaccinating our whole sector because it is very important to do that,” he said.
Nzimande also congratulated the university for having set up a vaccination site that was open to community members.
“You are not a vaccination centre just for the University of Pretoria, but you are a vaccination centre that is accessible to the community.”
He said he was proud that the higher education sector was not selfish.
“We didn’t say because we have everything; we have medical schools, we have schools of health sciences ... we are then going to be first to vaccinate.”
Kupe said the idea to have the vaccination site was the brainchild of the institution’s health faculty, which conceived the vision to assist staff and students. According to him, the university applied to the Tshwane Health District to establish a vaccination site on May 24.
It also applied for certification to operate as a satellite of FF Ribeiro Clinic at Sammy Marks on May 31.
While the university was still waiting for certification, it appointed part-time nursing staff and masters students from the pharmacology and anatomy departments.
Kupe said the site has the capacity to administer at least 92 vaccines a day but he would like it to do 150 shots. He also used the opportunity to share information about the work done by the university.
Pretoria News