Teacher unions have confirmed that educators, cleaners and other support staff at public schools in South Africa will be vaccinated against the Covid-19 virus starting Wednesday this week.
Unions say at least 500,000 Johnson & Johnson vaccines have been secured for the education sector.
Inside Education saw a letter by the Head of Health in KwaZulu-Natal, Dr Sandile Tshabalala, addressed to the Head of Education Enock Nzama asking that he makes departmental coordinators available for planning meetings last week.
READ: Teachers set to be vaccinated in the next week
In the letter written on Thursday titled: Vaccination of educators, Tshabalala said the national department of education has confirmed that the J&J vaccines would be made available in the next week and that “most of which should be used for educators”
Media reports state that the doses are still awaiting approval from the food and drug administration.
Following consultations between the Department of Basic Education and various stakeholders, Naptosa Executive Director Basil Manuel said they anticipated that teachers aged 40 and above will start to receive their jabs from Wednesday.
“The efforts to secure a vaccine for education workers, not just teachers, have been successful,” Manuel.
Manuel added the Department of Health will confirm vaccination schedules and allocate sites according to each school district
“We are busy currently with the logistics around rolling that out to all the schools including governing body paid teachers, starting with those over the age of 40 and starting with public schools.”
READ: Teacher unions push to have teachers vaccinated in June
