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New functionality, languages to be added to vaccine portal

Simnikiwe Mzekandaba
By Simnikiwe Mzekandaba, IT in government editor
Johannesburg, 23 Jul 2021
Acting minister of health, Mmamoloko Kubayi.
Acting minister of health, Mmamoloko Kubayi.

Citizens will soon be able to schedule appointments and select their preferred site via the electronic vaccination data system (EVDS), the Department of Health revealed today.

In addition to English, the EVDS can now be accessed in four other official languages.

Acting health minister Mmamoloko Kubayi says the EVDS – the official COVID-19 vaccination registration portal – has been “reprogrammed to allow for self-scheduling”.

This, according to Kubayi, means anyone who is registered on the EVDS will be able to choose a vaccination site where he or she wants to be vaccinated.

“As we continue to vaccinate, we are making every effort to streamline the administrative process so that there is ease of use of the IT system, the EVDS, and the access to physical vaccination sites,” she states.

To ensure more South Africans are reached, Kubayi notes the health department is working to enable the registration web portal to use all 11 official languages for ease of access. “So far, isiZulu, isiXhosa, Sesotho and Afrikaans have gone live, and we are still working on other languages.”

Since it’s been opened to the wider population, citizens have expressed a number of frustrations with the health department’s automated registration system for the COVID-19 vaccine.

Among the complaints is that the system was allocating people to sites very far from where they live, there was a lack of confirmation SMS informing registered users of their vaccination date and site, as well as Internet connectivity issues in some rural areas, to name a few.

The health department’s acting COO Milani Wolmarans says the language translations are available on the web portal, WhatsApp and USSD registration platforms. “This is to make it more accessible for the general population in order to be able to register on the system.”

Wolmarans says 80% of the population that is being scheduled through the scheduling system are accessing their vaccinations, based on the department’s analysis.

She points out that changes to enable selection of sites and booking timeslots for vaccination are currently in development, noting it’s quite a big alteration in terms of the technology.

The department anticipates the changes should be ready to go live by the end of the first week of August, if everything goes to plan.

“Individuals will continue to register on the EVDS. We will issue them with a vaccination code and then they will log onto a booking system where they can choose a date and time, as well as a site for vaccination.

“Once their booking is secured on the automated system, it will be disabled to indicate they’ve already been scheduled and then the person goes through the capturing vaccination process on the EVDS.

“Once they have been vaccinated, the system will send them an SMS to confirm their vaccination and they will go back into the queue if it is multi-dose vaccine.”

According to Wolmarans, the department plans to make a user-manual of the new functionality available and will widely communicate how it can be accessed.

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