05 October 2021

KWAZULU-Natal Health MEC Ms Nomagugu Simelane has once again given meaning to Government's mantra that "No-one must be left behind" from the COVID-19 vaccination programme, this time taking the free vaccination programme to farm workers throughout the Province, as well as foreign nationals who are not documented.

Earlier today, the MEC kicked-off the first of a series of such pop-up vaccination sites, at Luyanda Farm in Mandeni, at Ilembe District.

She said this was as a result of anecdotal evidence which showed that farm workers were finding it difficult to get themselves vaccinated.

In yet another open display of Government's welcoming and inclusive approach, MEC Simelane has also revealed that even individuals who are undocumented are welcome to visit any vaccination site and get vaccinated.

Explaining rationale behind this new approach, MEC Simelane said: "Last week we visited Amajuba District, and as we were engaging with the different communities, we realised that there was a big challenge of vaccination within the farming community in particular, especially when you're talking about farm workers and farm dwellers.

"We then decided that we need to have a two-pronged approach... where we'll go and visit them in their own households and have a mobile unit where they will be vaccinated. But we also decided that we will visit the different farm owners, come to an agreement, and request them to allow us to come into their farms to vaccinate the workers there, while they are working.

"This is the beginning of that particular campaign. As is common knowledge, the Province of KwaZulu-Natal is quite rural, and has a lot of farming communities, and a lot of farms.

"This is something that we will be rolling out over the next few days and weeks, because we want to get as many people as possible. We're not discriminating. We are vaccinating everyone. We're vaccinating South Africans... We're also vaccinating people who are not from South Africa, who have documents. But we are also vaccinating those who are not documented.

"Therefore, we ask everyone to come and partner with us, so that we are able to get to the 70% of the population that we need to vaccinated, which the Minister spoke about."

The Province of KwaZulu-Natal has now vaccinated 2, 811 930 people against COVID-19.

ENDS Issued by the KwaZulu-Natal Department of Health