Western Cape health authorities are considering increasing the vaccination target of people aged 50 and older to 85%.
This comes after the department was approached by the provincial expert advisory committee to change their current target.
At this moment, the department plans to fully vaccinate around 70% of the total population for this age group by mid-December.
Out of more than 1.4 million people aged 50 and older in the province, more than 52% are already protected.
Local health officials are deliberating over the request before approaching the national department for approval.
Head of Health, Dr Keith Cloete admits that they’ll increase the target but due process must be followed first.
“ Once we make the final decision, obviously we need to take everybody into consideration implications and logistics, we’ll then formalise. It’s very likely that we’ll formalise and increase the target, because the evidence is overwhelming to do that. It does mean we’ll put additional effort to raise this higher target”.