Home News De Beers rolls out Covid vaccination programme

De Beers rolls out Covid vaccination programme

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From left: Innocent Mabusela, head of corporate affairs at De Beers, Northern Cape MEC for Health Maruping Lekwene and Dr Tshepo Sedibe, the senior occupational health manager for De Beers Group. Picture: Danie van der Lith

Diamond giant De Beers has kicked off its vaccination programme for its employees and their immediate families in the Northern Cape.

“WE VALUE the health and safety of our people, and are equally committed to delivering support to our host communities with a wide range of proactive response measures, including the vaccination drives to overcome the pandemic.”

This was the message from the senior vice president of De Beers Sightholder Sales, Peter Moeti, at the roll-out of the De Beers Group’s Covid-19 vaccination programme at the Big Hole in Kimberley.

De Beers kicked off its vaccination programme for its employees and their immediate families in the Northern Cape on Monday, September 20.

Moeti said they aim to vaccinate 100% of their employees against Covid-19.

He added that the programme is not only focused on vaccinating employees against Covid-19 but it also includes screening and testing for other ailments.

“In supporting the national Department of Health’s Covid-19 vaccination effort, De Beers hosted the workplace vaccination drive in conjunction with a wellness drive, where its employees in Kimberley and their immediate family members could receive health services for voluntary HIV counselling and testing, body mass index (BMI), cholesterol, blood glucose and blood pressure testing. That is in addition to information and access to available Covid-19 vaccines,” Moeti said.

He said that more than 5,000 employees and contractors in the group have registered to get vaccinated.

“To date, the company has registered more than 5,252 employees and contractors since the start of the company’s workplace vaccination programme in July. The impact of Covid-19 on our lives, health, the economy and our work cannot be quantified. This is why achieving a high uptake of Covid-19 vaccination amongst our people is so important. Vaccines are vital to protecting our health and enabling us to operate safely and productively.

“It has taken a great deal of concerted effort, working in unity with government and the public sector, to make information on vaccines easily accessible and convenient for all our employees, contractors and their immediate family members to get vaccinated at work.”

Forty-eight employees from De Beers in Kimberley were vaccinated and the group said it will continue its vaccination programme until all employees are vaccinated.

Moeti said that the safety and health of employees and that of their families is one of the priorities for conducive employment conditions.

“Making vaccines accessible to our people, their families and our host communities is the most important thing we can do to support the ramp-up of the Covid-19 vaccine programme. Vaccines assist in reducing the risk of falling extremely ill and can help us all to return to a more normal life. We urge all those who are able to get vaccinated do so as we build up the population immunity and overcome this pandemic,” said Moeti.

The MEC for Health, Maruping Lekwene, commended De Beers for partnering with the Health Department in spreading the message on the importance of getting vaccinated.

“As the Department of Health and government, we see De Beers as a very reliable and important stakeholder, and we are really pleased to have such a relationship in trying to save lives. We have vaccinated more than 315,000 people thus far, and we are aiming to vaccinate half of our target by the end of December. We are confident that through such collaborations and stakeholder relationships we will build a better country and strengthen the health sector going forward,” said Lekwene.

MEC Maruping Lekwene speaking to De Beers staff members regarding the vaccination programme. Picture: Danie van der Lith
Dr Tshepo Sedibe, senior occupational health manager for De Beers Group, at the event. Picture: Danie van der Lith
Peter Moeti, senior vice president of De Beers Sightholder Sales South Africa, highlighting the importance of the vaccination programme.
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