Keeping them safe

To empower its employees and the larger community in the fight against Covid-19, Volkswagen Group South Africa (VWSA) has begun vaccinating its employees in Kariega (previously Uitenhage) against the virus.

The VWSA vaccination centre, which was set up at the VW PeoplePavilion near the plant in Kariega, began administering the Pfizer vaccines to VWSA employees on August 2.

“VWSA has played an instrumental role in the fight against the Covid-19 pandemic so far,” says Dr Robert Cisek, VWSA chairman and managing director. “As one of the largest employers in the Eastern Cape, we take the responsibility of protecting our employees and the community against Covid-19 seriously. This vaccination centre is an important part of fulfilling that duty, and I am proud of each employee who supports us in our duty by choosing to vaccinate.”

The centre was recently approved and accredited by the Department of Health as a workplace vaccination site. It is staffed by four professional nurses, some of whom are contract staff and some from the company’s Wellness Centre, as well as two administrators.

At the current pace, the vaccination centre will have vaccinated all willing employees (who have not yet received both doses of the vaccine) by the first week of September. When this goal is reached, the company plans to expand the vaccination programme to VWSA’s on-site service providers and then the loved ones living in the same household as VWSA employees.

The vaccination centre functions separately from the Covid-19 testing facility which was set up by VWSA last year and continues to provide free drive-through Covid-19 testing for employees in Kariega. By the second week of August, the facility had performed more than 6 800 tests.