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07 October 2021 | Story André Damons
Dr Nicholas Pearce, Head of the Department of Surgery in the Faculty of Health Sciences at the UFS, Prof Adrian Puren, Acting Executive Director of the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD), Prof Glenda Gray, President and CEO of the South African Medical Research Council (SAMRC), and Dr Angelique Coetzee, Chairperson of the South African Medical Association (SAMA), were the panellists at the University of the Free State (UFS) Thought-Leader webinar, themed Why vaccinate?

Panellists at the University of the Free State (UFS) Thought-Leader webinar, themed Why vaccinate, felt it was critical for everyone in South Africa to get vaccinated in order to return to a sense of normality and to a university environment where lectures and learning not only happen in the lecture room, but in the ‘informal’ academic environment. 
Large numbers of the community need to be vaccinated to halt the progression of the pandemic and to maintain non-pharmaceutical interventions. 

Dr Nicholas Pearce, Head of the Department of Surgery in the Faculty of Health Sciences at the UFS, Prof Adrian Puren, Acting Executive Director for the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD), Prof Glenda Gray, President and CEO of the South African Medical Research Council (SAMRC), and Dr Angelique Coetzee, Chairperson of the South African Medical Association (SAMA), were the panellists. This was the fifth webinar (28 September 2021) in the series, which is part of the Free State Literature Festival’s online initiative, VrySpraak-digitaal. 

Critical that everyone get vaccinated to return to a sense of normality

Dr Pearce indicated that patients seemed hesitant to present to both private and state health-care facilities during the COVID-19 pandemic. This resulted in patients presenting in the final stages of cancer (stages 3 and 4 as opposed to stages 1 and 2). “The quicker we are able to exit the COVID-19 pandemic – and we will probably never totally eradicate it as it might become endemic – we can go back to treating other medical conditions that are currently not being optimally managed,” said Dr Pearce.

He is also concerned that the impact of the pandemic on other medical diseases (such as mental issues) will only become visible over a number of years. We must be careful that we do not forget about the non-COVID diseases, according to Dr Pearce. 

Dr Pearce said it was critical that everyone be vaccinated in order to return to a sense of normality. The COVID-19 protocols of social distancing and the wearing of masks have left a mental toll on us as a society. He said depression and suicide are on the rise, and if we want to go back to a sense of normality, a large number of people need to get vaccinated.

The economic problems caused by COVID-19 are huge, as a large number of people have stopped their medical aids in the Free State. Some of the other economic problems due to COVID-19 is that a larger number of the younger population got infected during the third wave, which means that many breadwinners lost their lives. In the medium and long term, this is going to have huge economic repercussions. 

Vaccine acceptance increased among South African adults

Armed with figures from a recent study by the Centre for Social Change at the University of Johannesburg (UJ) in collaboration with the Developmental, Capable and Ethical State research division of the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC), Dr Coetzee illustrated the importance of getting vaccinated. 

The study found that even though hesitancy dropped by 5%, vaccine acceptance increased to 72% among South African adults.

She said according to the study, South Africa faces two significant challenges. “First, if all 72% were actually vaccinated, we would still be 8% short of the government’s target of 80%. So, we know that government has secured significant vaccines to vaccinate the entire adult population and that the supply of vaccines should no longer be a concern as we had seen earlier this year. What we need to do is to convince some of the people who are currently hesitating about the value of getting vaccinated.”

Acceptance among the older age group has risen substantially by 11% when comparing the results from round three (December 2020 to 6 January 2021) with round four (June 2021 to July 2021). Said Dr Coetzee: “But what is still concerning is that the acceptance among those aged 18 to 24 years has actually declined from 63% to 55%.”
The second challenge that came to the fore, continued Dr Coetzee, is one of access. “We have said many times before, vaccines should be brought to the people, and not the other way around. Finally, we are now seeing that this is starting to happen, but I think it is too slow – especially in the rural areas – and maybe a bit too late. Let’s see what is going to happen going forward.”

According to Dr Coetzee, the message must be clear: We need to vaccinate to save the health-care workers and to save lives and maintain the non-pharmaceutical interventions. She said it does not matter how many times people are told to get vaccinated, they still want to take their chances with the virus. 

Aim higher to achieve herd immunity

According to Prof Puren, the threshold for herd immunity of about 67% vaccinated adults in South Africa now seems to be more mythical. “We should be aiming higher than that, meaning 90% or higher in terms of the proportion of the population being vaccinated in order for us to have a more endemic control,” says Prof Puren. 

“A large number of people in South Africa have been infected with COVID-19, but there is still a significant proportion of people that have not experienced this virus. Herd immunity is about the indirect effect of protecting those individuals who are susceptible. So, it’s a particular threshold of the number of people who had an immune response.” 

Prof Puren said there will have to be a breakthrough in infections. Vaccines do work, they are effective. It is possible for us to achieve endemic control, and vaccines are the critical component to do that. 

Important benefits of vaccination are to gain control of the academic year

“The questions about the benefits of mandatory vaccination at university – to prevent hospitalisation and deaths.  With vaccination, you also impact isolation and quarantine challenges. If you have good coverage of vaccinations, institutions will not have to keep closing classrooms, or hostels. It will help keep the workforce open. 

“One of the important benefits of vaccinations is to gain control of the academic year. All the universities have suffered, having to move to online learning where a lot of students don’t have the luxury and privilege of having data available to them all the time.”

“The issue of hybrid learning is important, and you will still see a lot of hybrid learning going on as we go into different surges. But students still need interaction, they still need face-to-face teaching, and they still need the interaction, the socialisation. We have to maximise the university experience,” said Prof Gray.  

In answering the question – would it be beneficial for employees and institutions to formulate and implement a vaccination policy – Prof Gray said it was a critical move to open up academic institutions.  

She agreed with Prof Puren that the 70% is almost mythical, and that a higher level of vaccination will be needed to start controlling the pandemic. 

“Why should we vaccinate? Why should we try and control the transmissions in our country? We have to do that, because we need our economy to start, we see how we have been affected by being on the red lists of certain countries. This affects our economy, our tourism, and jobs. A lot of people have lost jobs. If we want to interface with the rest of the world, we are going to have a discussion around making sure citizens are vaccinated.”


• The recording of the webinar can be found here  

 Passcode: nJv%p7Rp

News Archive

UFS breakthrough on SRC
2005-06-10

The Council of the University of the Free State (UFS) today unanimously approved the establishment of a Central Student Representative Council (CSRC)  to ensure the democratic participation of students at its three campuses in the governance of the university.

In a major breakthrough and transformation step for student governance, the Central SRC will include representatives of the main campus in Bloemfontein, the Vista campus and the Qwaqwa campus of the UFS.

The establishment of the Central SRC follows the incorporation of the Qwaqwa campus into the UFS in January 2003 and the incorporation of the Vista campus in Bloemfontein into the UFS in January 2004.

According to Dr Ezekiel Moraka, Vice-Rector: Student Affairs, today’s decision of Council is the result of a lengthy, negotiated agreement between the three campuses. Independent experts facilitated part of the process.

With the establishment of a Central SRC, the UFS has adopted a federal student governance model whereby the CSRC is the highest representative student body on matters of common concern for all students.

However, the three campuses of the UFS will retain autonomous SRC structures for each campus with powers and responsibilities for matters affecting the particular campus.

This arrangement will be reviewed after a year to make allowance for the phasing out of students at the Vista campus, as was agreed in the negotiations preceding the incorporation of that campus into the UFS.

The central SRC will have a maximum of 12 members made up of members of the campus SRCs, including the presidents of these three SRCs. In total, the main campus will have 5 representatives, the Qwaqwa campus will have 4 representatives and the Vista campus will have 3 representatives.

From these 12 members a central SRC president will be chosen on a quarterly basis to represent the general student body at Executive Management, Senate and Council.

In another key decision and significant step forward affecting student governance, the Council also approved amendments the constitution of the Student Representative Council (SRC) of the main campus.  These amendments were the results of deliberations of student organizations, the SRC and the Student Parliament of the UFS main campus.

The amendments to the constitution of the main campus SRC determines that nine of the 18 SRC members must be elected by means of proportional representation and nine on the basis of an individual, first-past-the-post election.

This decision comes in the wake of calls by certain student organizations on main campus for proportional representation to be included as a means of electing student representatives.

The following portfolios of the main campus SRC will be contested by individual candidates on the basis of first past the post:

  • president
  • secretary
  • academic affairs
  • legal and constitutional affairs
  • student development
  • arts and culture
  • men’s internal liaison
  • ladies internal liaison
  • media, marketing and liaison

The following nine portfolios will be contested by affiliated organizations on a proportional representation basis.

  • two vice-presidents
  • treasurerdialogue and associations
  • transformation
  • campus affairs and recreation
  • sport
  • international affairs
  • community service

It also is a breakthrough to have all constitutional changes processed and approved at the June meeting of the Council, with all relevant student organizations having been part of the process and accepting the outcome of the process.

According to the chairperson of the UFS Council, Judge Faan Hancke, today’s unanimous decisions on student governance are an indication of how all UFS stakeholders represented in Council are committed to finding win-win solutions in the interest of the university.

“Once again the UFS has reached another milestone in its transformation and has shown the rest of the country that we are pioneers in the field of reaching intelligent solutions to complex situations,” Judge Hancke said.

According to Dr Moraka, the central SRC constitution will come into effect from the start of the second semester this year.

 MEDIA RELEASE

Issued by: Lacea Loader
    Media Representative
    Tel:  (051) 401-2584
    Cell:  083 645 2454
     E-mail:  loaderl.stg@mail.uovs.ac.za

10 June 2005
 

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