Business for South Africa (B4SA) on Thursday lauded its partnership with the Department of Health citing the integrated programme to administer vaccines equitably and efficiently ahead of a possible fourth wave of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Stakeholders working together have secured doses to achieve a target of 1-million vaccines administered every three days.

B4SA chairperson Martin Kingston said the business sector intervened to help South Africa ramp up its Covid-19 vaccination capacity, which should also help the economy recover.

He said the private sector will be able to administer 300 000 doses a day, with 150 sites potentially available, of which 57 are currently operating.

Kingston explained that uninsured and insured people are vaccinated across public and private sites under one programme, with an increased ease of access to vaccines owing to walk-ins, self-scheduling and bulk uploads on government’s Electronic Vaccination Data System Self Registration Portal.

The partnership has so far secured 31-million Johnson & Johnson (J&J) doses and 31.3-million Pfizer doses.

Kingston said under-capacitated sub-districts have been identified, with B4SA and government to jointly meet the need with new private, public or mobile/outreach sites.

Kingston said despite the recent unrest that engulfed parts of KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng, which saw stock reallocated, weekly vaccination numbers have quickly recovered.

Vaccination rates are accelerating as supply becomes available and B4SA is modelling various scenarios to help reduce excess deaths ahead of an expected fourth wave.

The model forecasts that by October more than 30-million people – or 80% of adults – will have received their 1st vaccine dose, this if a maximum of 2.3-million doses are administered weekly (an average of 365 000 doses a day).

Kingston said over time demand will need to be stimulated to ensure a consistent utilisation of capacity to meet targets.

While the near-term vaccine stock is highly constrained, pressure will be relieved from early August, assuming that part of the 5.6-million Pfizer doses available will be used from week 1 of August and part of the 1.4-million J&J batch will be used from week 2 of August.

Meanwhile, the unprecedented public and private partnership is ramping up to deliver 400 000 doses a day, with more than 7-million vaccines administered and 8.5-million registrations recorded so far.

Kingston said the private sector is willing to ramp up capacity as required with coordinating teams working with sites to ensure that new capacity is located in areas that need it.