City of Joburg destroys an unspecified amount of critical vaccines

Technology

The City of Johannesburg’s Health Department has had to destroy an unspecified amount of critical vaccines at the Westbury clinic in Johannesburg.

This was due to a power failure caused by cable theft.

The department says the vaccines must be stored in refrigerators at specific temperatures, but the fridges were affected  after experiencing the power failure. The generator, which serves as a back-up power supply system, could not kick in because of the interference with the electricity cables.

The Department’s Dominic Mahlangu says the clinic will be restocked with new vaccines.

“Our vaccines must be kept in a particular temperature in our fridges … with the power out the whole night and in the morning when the staff came in we did not want to take any chances.  So we had to destroy unfortunately a number of vaccines that were kept in the fridges.  And this has a direct impact in the community that uses that clinic,” adds Mahlangu.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *