ANA reports that with the Johnson and Johnson (J&J) Sisonke Programme to vaccinate healthcare workers having resumed on Wednesday, such workers have been urged to register with the programme.
With almost 300,000 healthcare workers vaccinated so far, the study was temporarily paused two weeks ago after six American women suffered an extremely rare clotting disorder, after receiving the J&J vaccine. "We are two weeks behind and we urge all our healthcare workers not yet registered to please register and this now includes their personnel like secretaries, like the staff working in surgeries so that phase 1B also can commence as quickly as possible,” said Dr Angelique Coetzee of the SA Medical Association (Sama). The Western Cape Health Department has also advised healthcare workers in the province to give re-consent to participate in the trial Covid-19 vaccination programme. As a condition for resuming the programme, the SA Health Products Regulatory Authority (Sahpra) has added a requirement that all Sisonke participants need to be informed of the potential risk of the rare clotting disorder and therefore re-consent to participate. Additional recommendations include that pregnant and breastfeeding women should be excluded from the trial at this stage. Enhanced screening processes have also been introduced
- Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Rudolph Nkgadima at Independent Media
- Read too, Healthcare workers in J&J vaccine trial must re-consent as roll-out resumes, at Cape Argus
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