The department regrets to report that there has been no additional budget for demand generation. The additional resources have been provided by the private sector and voluntarily placement of advertisements and radio slots. The investments include making vaccination mean more to people (through demand creation) and making it easier to get vaccinated (through establishing more vaccination sites, using outreach and extending vaccination site times, primarily to weekends). Doses in the arms, especially of older people mean a lot fewer admissions and savings to the health system. Calculations have been done which show that vaccination of people over 65 years saves the health system around R850 per vaccination based on a cost of admission which is about R75 000 per admission. It has also been estimated that vaccinating 83 men over 65 years could prevent 1 admission, saving R903 in admission cost for this group.
The cost of vaccines and associated supplies remains the major investment. The cost of the logistics to provide the vaccinations increases exponentially as it becomes more difficult to reach people. Increasingly more effort and investment are required to drive towards critical thresholds of coverage. People who are willing to vaccinate if their personal costs or constraints are reduced cost the vaccination programme more to reach than those who have no limitation on access at their own costs.
The public investment case is that COVID-19 has had a devastating effect on both society and the economy:
END.
2