E200M BUDGET FOR COVID-19 VACCINES

MBABANE – There is light at the end of the COVID-19 tunnel as government has set aside a budget of at least E200 million for securing vaccines.  

This was disclosed yesterday by Acting Prime Minister Themba Masuku during a COVID-19 update press conference held at the Cabinet Offices. Masuku said the COVID-19 vaccine would be readily available in the kingdom during the first quarter, which essentially means in April this year, but he said he hoped this would happen sooner.

It was revealed that the Taiwanese Government had supported the country financially by contributing over E7 million (US$500 000). 

It was stated that these resources would not only be sufficient to secure adequate vaccines for emaSwati but also supplement the additional budget needed to continue the efforts of combating the scourge.  

Masuku further informed the nation that the Ministry of Health had established a COVID-19 Vaccine Preparedness Team, which was currently working around the clock to put in place the necessary logistics that would enable the procurement, delivery and storage of the vaccines once they became readily available countrywide. He said the team was also developing a plan for the rollout of the vaccine to the population while taking into consideration priority groups such as frontline workers and the elderly population.  

Furthermore, he said government was fully committed to ensuring that all people residing in the country received the COVID-19 vaccine in order to ensure that all were protected from the scourge.  It was disclosed that the kingdom was part of COVAX facility, which was coordinating the availability of vaccines to low and middle  income countries that signed up to this facility.  

According to www.gavi.org, a reputable vaccine alliance; COVAX is one of three pillars of the Access to COVID-19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator, which was launched in April by the World Health Organisation (WHO), the European Commission and France in response to this pandemic. 

The facility brings together governments, global health organisations, manufacturers, scientists, private sector, civil society and philanthropy, with the aim of providing innovative and equitable access to COVID-19 diagnostics, treatments and vaccines. The acting PM said it was pivotal to emphasise that every liSwati was expected to adhere to the health and safety regulations and relevant directives to save the nation.

“Currently, we are deep in the midst of a second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, resulting in an exponential increase in numbers of people infected and those presenting with severe disease,” he averred. With this, he said the need to increase the number of health workers to be in the frontline and provide services in the COVID-19 response toward controlling the pandemic could not be over emphasised. 

Frontline

Furthermore, services to be provided by the frontline workers include educating, screening, swabbing and testing and linkage to care for those found to have been infected with COVID-19, as part of operation ‘Stay Ahead of the Virus’.  As a result, Masuku avowed that government was in the process of hiring an additional 70 health personnel to increase the number of trained health workers who participated in the COVID-19 response activities and improve the COVID-19 response to reduce the impact of the pandemic to the population. 

The new health professionals to be engaged by government include health personnel who have recently graduated from health training institutions in the country such as the Southern Africa Nazarene University (SANU).  

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