Cape Town - Deputy Minister of Health Dr Sibongiseni Dhlomo says mandatory vaccination has been pushed by vaccine hesitancy in the country.
He said there were a number of people who had not come forward to get the jabs.
However, the government has started a number of programmes to get people to vaccinate, but they have not been able to get the numbers they want.
President Cyril Ramaphosa announced on Sunday that mandatory vaccination could be on the way after he established a task team to look into it.
Dhlomo told the National Council of Provinces during question time that vaccine hesitancy has led the government to take this decision.
“The task team that the president is actually talking about, which should be led by the deputy president in an inter-ministerial platform, will be the add-on (to some of the already existing programmes) that has to come before that. It is actually provoked by this vaccine hesitancy. There are certain processes that have taken place before that.
“There is a programme called return to play, led by Deputy President David Mabuza, and supported by Minister (Nathi) Mthethwa where they visited almost five stadia. They were there with sports fans and sporting bodies,” said Dhlomo.
He said the other programme encouraging people to get vaccinated was the Vooma campaign.
There was also a psycho-social team led by Bishop Malusi Mpumlwana to get the faith sector on board as well.
They were also talking to traditional leaders to be involved in getting people in their communities to be vaccinated.
He said these strategic players were important in pushing up the numbers of people to be vaccinated.
He said the announcement by Ramaphosa was because of vaccine hesitancy.
siyabonga.mkhwanazi@inl.co.za
Political Bureau