In urban areas, the Electronic Vaccination Data System will allocate a site within 10km from your work or home for vaccination. In rural areas it will assign you a centre within 30km of the address you entered into the system.
This week, the EVDS sent out the country’s first text messages for Covid vaccination appointments — but not without problems. Load shedding also disabled the EVDS at times and vaccinators therefore often had to record vaccinations manually, instead of directly on to the EVDS. But Nicholas Crisp, the deputy director-general in charge of South Africa’s National Health Insurance system, who also helps to manage the implementation of the vaccine roll-out, says most of these problems have now been addressed.How does the EVDS decide which vaccination site to send you to for an appointment?