The official launch of the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) Covid-19 vaccine roll-out has been postponed due to technical challenges.
The launch of the programme had been scheduled to take place at the Military Medical Centre situated within the Waterkloof Air Force Base in Pretoria earlier today.
SANDF spokesperson Siphiwe Dlamini said the actual launch of the vaccination programme had been postponed due to technical, internal and operational processes they needed to make sure were in place before making any further pronouncements.
However, Dlamini said despite the postponement of the launch the planned roll-out of the vaccination to members would continue in all other areas that were initially earmarked.
Dlamini said by their own calculation they would like to cover as many members as possible in particular those that were on the frontline such as the deployed members and members that were in courses where they congregated in large numbers.
"We are going to follow the national plan that the most exposed members will be the ones given the first jabs because a lot of people don't understand that we are also frontline workers."
"We are on the borders, assisting the police during the lockdown, we attend to the sick and are exposed to hospitals so we have to have our members protected."
The spokesperson said that they would also be getting to members deployed across the country but focusing mostly on those busy with courses at the moment even though there may be changes according to the needs and emergencies as they arose.
"As we roll out the vaccines we will be looking at all the nitty gritty as to how do we protect those members that are externally deployed working in collaboration with the United Nations on how best those members can be attended to."
According to the force, there are 16 vaccination sites identified for the purpose of inoculating uniformed, civilian and extended members of the military community across the country.
The voluntary inoculation programme will prioritise regular force members including reserve force members on call-up in the order of scheduling and categories.
These include health care workers, persons in congregate settings also referred to as military courses, deployed members, navy members deployed along the South African and Mozambique border, military veterans on regular force medical continuation fund and lastly the dependants according to their age group and as prescribed by the National Department of Health.
Pretoria News