The Solidarity Fund was established by SA President, Cyril Ramaphosa in March to pool financial resources to respond to the Covid-19 pandemic and contain the disease’s social and economic effect on citizens.
The Fund has spent more than half of the R2.1bn on personal protective equipment (PPE) and to roll out food relief for vulnerable households affected by the coronavirus. According to Nomkhita Nqweni, CEO of the Solidarity Fund, “the R2.1bn disbursed, R1.2bn went to buying about 35-million pieces of PPE such as surgical masks, N95 masks, gloves and ventilators. The intention is to ramp up the acquisition to 55-million pieces”.
Furthermore, in partnership with the Transnet Foundation, the Fund has converted two of its Phelophepa health-care trains into mobile Covid-19 testing units. The partnership is aimed at ramping up screening and testing in underserviced areas across KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape, using the existing Transnet rail network.
“The Phelophepa trains are a well-known partner of rural communities in the provision of primary health services. It is a real privilege for us to now include Covid-19 testing at this critical time. We have been, and always will be there for our people,” said Portia Derby, Transnet CEO.
Moreover, the fund has also approved R250m for the National Health Laboratory Services to acquire 400,000 Covid-19 testing kits to support mass testing across the country, especially in the outlying areas of the country. It has also approved R11.3m to support the local manufacturing of two prototypes of ventilators. “This project aims to manufacture 10,000 ventilators by July, in line with the expected peak of Covid-19 cases in the country”, added Nqweni.
Because of the strict lockdown in the country, about 98% of medical equipment is being sourced from international markets, with the remaining 2% procured locally.“It’s fair to say that we are only now starting to see the activation of local manufacturing of PPE. In the initial phase we didn’t have huge manufacturing capacity,” said Nqweni.
