Health expert: How will COVID-19 billions be spent? Updated
Nothando Mkhize
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A local health expert says the money the Finance Minister allocated to support the country's COVID-19 vaccination programme is a good start.
AAMIR QURESHI / AFP
Tito Mboweni told Parliament while tabling the budget yesterday, that R10 billion has been set aside for the purchase, delivery and rollout of vaccines.
UKZN Public Health Professor, Kaymarlin Govender, says Treasury will need to provide a breakdown of how the funds will be distributed.
"Whether this allocation of vaccines to cover 67% of the population to achieve herd immunity, well that's the big question. In my opinion, this amount is not enough to fund a full vaccine programme."
Cutting health budget will kill South Africans, warns nursing union Updated
Jacaranda FM
SAFTU
Ahead of Mboweni’s budget speech on Wednesday, unions
affiliated to trade union federation Saftu have embarked on a stay-away.
Speaking at a picket outside the Chris Hani Baragwanath
Hospital in Soweto, the Young Nurses Indaba’s Fikile Dikolomela-Leungene said
the African National Congress (ANC) has failed to prioritise healthcare
workers
“Twenty-four years into democracy the ruling party has done
nothing but massacre the Health Department. Look at the PPE corruption saga,
they are even taking a snail pace in dealing with those crimes. Instead they
Finance Minister Tito Mboweni says despite dwindling government coffers, there is no need for an austerity budget framework for the upcoming financial year.