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[Thread] 1. What will happen to our #CovidVaccines when they land today? @PresidencyZA says the 1 million #AstraZeneca jabs will arrive at OR Tambo at 3pm. They’ll be received by #CyrilRampahosa, #ZweliMkhize + the Indian High Commissioner, amongst others. https://bit.ly/3j8aADs
2. The pallets of #CovidVaccines will then go through customs and be transported to a temperature-controlled Biovac warehouse in Johannesburg. Biovac is the pharmaceutical company that will handle the logistics of today's consignment of #CovidVaccines. https://bit.ly/3oFLYmI
3. Each #CovidVaccine box of vials has a temperature monitoring device that keeps a record of the jabs’ temperature at all times during the trip. A vial contains 10 doses of vaccine (with each dose to be extracted by syringe at the time of vaccination). https://bit.ly/3oFLYmI
4. At the Biovac warehouse, the jabs will be placed in a cold-room “receiving area” so that when the vaccine boxes are first opened for the condition of the vials to be checked, they are already at the correct storage temperature of 2-8 degrees Celsius. https://bit.ly/3oFLYmI
5. At this point, the temperature-logging devices that travelled with each box containing jabs “will tell you how the journey went from a temperature perspective”, Biovac told @bhekisisa_MG. https://bit.ly/3oFLYmI
6. The #CovidVaccine boxes will then be divided up for storage in three separate cold rooms, which is standard risk-management practice. They will be monitored and there will be generators in case there’s load-shedding. https://bit.ly/3oFLYmI
7. On Tuesday, samples from the #CovidVaccines will be transported to Bloemfontein to the National Control Lab at the University of the Free State. The samples will get tested to make sure they contain all the ingredients they need to. https://bit.ly/3oFLYmI
8. The #CovidVaccine tests will take between 10 and 14 days, the health minister says. While the tests are being done, the rest of the jabs will be quarantined at the Biovac warehouse in Johannesburg. They’ll stay there until the tests are done. https://bit.ly/3oFLYmI
9. Once the #CovidVaccines tests have been completed, and the jabs verified, Biovac will distribute the vaccines to provinces to venues specified by the health department. We don’t yet know the details of those venues. https://bit.ly/3oFLYmI
10. At each provincial delivery point, Biovac will verify that a pharmacist can receive and sign for the #CovidVaccines. “By signing they are taking accountability for the vaccine from that point,” says Biovac. https://bit.ly/3oFLYmI
11. Once Biovac has delivered the #CovidVaccines to provinces, the health department is responsible for vaccine delivery to public healthcare sites and the private sector has to distribute vaccines to private sites. https://bit.ly/3oFLYmI
12. We don’t yet know how many #CovidVaccine vaccination centres there will be or where they will be. But we do know, that in the case of health workers, many of them will receive their jabs at their places of work, i.e. at provincial or private hospitals. https://bit.ly/3oFLYmI
13. What happens after a health worker has had their first jab? For the AstraZeneca #CovidVaccine, they will need a second jab, between 4 and 12 weeks after the first one. Our #MAC recommends 12 weeks. https://bit.ly/3oFLYmI
14. How many health workers need to get vaccinated? The health department says 1.25 million. The department’s definition of health workers includes everyone working in health facilities, not just medical workers, also cleaners, porters and receptionists. https://bit.ly/3oFLYmI
15. Will the first 2 batches (1 million today, 500 000 later in Feb) be enough to cover all health workers? No. We’re getting 1.5 million and each worker will need two shots, so the 1.5 million doses will only cover between 700 000 and 750 000 workers. https://bit.ly/3oFLYmI
16. How effective is the #AstraZeneca jab? Overall efficacy = 70%. The dosing formula we’re using (2 full doses, 12 wks apart) has an efficacy of 62%. This was measured 2 wks after the 2nd jab. We don’t know how the #501YV2 variant will impact efficacy. https://bit.ly/3reC5Ot
