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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 school of management offers educational workshop to alumni and public
2004-08-27

“The most important responsibilities of the University of the Free State ’s (UFS) School of Management towards its alumni are the provision of quality academic programmes and continuing quality service.” This is according to the Director of the School, Prof Helena van Zyl.

“One of these services is to offer workshops in order to refresh alumni’s better knowledge and to expose them to the latest developments in several fields and disciplines. Such an opportunity is being arranged by the MBA Alumni on 11 September 2004 , when alumni and members of the public are welcome to join in an interesting workshop,” said Prof van Zyl.

The three subjects that will be discussed will of such a nature that all professional and non-professional persons – from lawyers to general practitioners and people in the business world – will benefit from it.

Prof Teuns Verschoor, Vice-Rector: Academic Operations at the UFS will discuss The effect of the promotion of access to information on medical practitioners, patients and their next of kin.

Prof Verschoor’s second presentation will give insight into The professional as an expert witness in court. Medical practitioners will obtain one CPD ethics point for participating in the workshop.

Another highlight of the workshop will be Prof Mukul Gupta from India , who will give a presentation on marketing lessons learned from India .

The first two sessions, led by Prof Verschoor, will take place from 10:00 to 12:00 . The workshop presented by Prof Gupta, will be from 13:00 to 15:00 . The workshop will take place in the CR Swart Auditorium on campus at a cost of R100 per person. Those interested can contact Mr Danie Bredenkamp at 082 5530 535 or banket@mweb.co.za.

More than 100 MBA students have graduated since 2001 and all of them are invited to the Annual General Meeting, which will take place in the CR Swart Auditorium after the workshop.

The annual MBA Alumni Banquet, exclusively for Kovsie Alumni with an MBA qualification from the UFS, will take place on the evening of 11 September 2004 .

For more information Sarien can be contacted at (051) 401-9195 or crouss.ekw@mail.uovs.ac.za.
 

Media release
Issued by: Lacea Loader
Media Representative
Tel: (051) 401-2584
Cell: 083 645 2454
E-mail: loaderl.stg@mail.uovs.ac.za
27 August 2004

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