Acting Health Minister Mmamoloko Kubayi revealed on Friday that owing to the success of the vaccination of those aged 35 to 49, government would do away with vaccinations by sector and continue with vaccinations based on age groups.

The Department of Health opened registration for the Covid-19 vaccine for persons aged between 35 and 49 years on July 15, with over 1-million people in that age group registering for the vaccine in 24 hours.

“The Inter-Ministerial Committee on Vaccine has agreed with our proposition to do away with sectoral prioritisation in our approach to vaccination. The age based strategy will be our approach going forward, it is more effective and helps us to reach a wider spectrum of South Africans,” Kubayi said.

Meanwhile, 1 500 volunteers have joined the vaccination programme across the country to administer vaccines over the weekend. Volunteers include doctors, nurses and health workers.

Mass vaccination sites have also been touted for metros across the country to handle large populations.

The first model will be roving vaccination sites, which will move from one community to the next based on the demand.

The Electronic Vaccination Data System (EVDS) has also been reconfigured to allow people to choose their own vaccination site, instead of being assigned one on the system.

Government is also working to get the EVDS available in all 11 official languages. It is currently using English, Isizulu, IsiXhosa, Sesotho and Afrikaans.

“Our vaccination is gathering pace and we are thankful to South Africans who have responded positively to the calls to go out and vaccinate. The milestones we have achieved in the vaccination programme are as a result of a very productive and coordinated working relationship between government and the private sector,” Kubayi said.

Meanwhile, government has expressed concern about the growing spread of fake news around the side effects of vaccines, which it says is aimed at creating panic to discourage people from vaccinating.

Kubayi stressed that vaccines have side effects as any other medication has and added that everybody would experience these differently.

“We have said before, and I will repeat this here again, we all have a freedom of choice. It is everyone’s democratic right to choose not to vaccinate and government will not force anyone who chooses not vaccinate to do so against their will. We appeal to those who have made the choice not to vaccinate to respect the right of others to make a choice by not flooding them with false information, fake news and other falsehoods aimed at discouraging them from vaccinating,” she said.