Health Minister Zweli Mkhize says South Africa will instead launch a vaccination campaign with shots from Johnson & Johnson.
South Africa is considering trading its doses of AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine and starting its vaccination campaign with Johnson & Johnson injections instead, the health minister said.
The country, hardest hit by the pandemic in Africa, has suspended the roll-out of vaccines that would begin this week with the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine after an investigation found the injection could not prevent mild and moderate illness caused by a variant discovered in South Africa called 501Y.V2.
The postponement of vaccination has reversed an ambitious plan to vaccinate about 40 million people – 67 percent of the population – by the end of 2021.
“Given the results of the efficacy studies [the government] will proceed with the planned phase one vaccination with the Johnson & Johnson vaccines instead of the AstraZeneca vaccine, ”Health Minister Zweli Mkhize told a news conference on Wednesday.
“The Johnson & Johnson vaccine has been shown to be effective against the 501Y.V2 variant.”
He did not say when the immunization would start.
Officials are also deciding the fate of more than a million Oxford AstraZeneca vaccines already obtained from the Serum Institute of India (SII) that are due to expire in late April, although that date may be subject to change.
Mkhize pointed out several options, including selling or swapping the doses with countries tackling the original coronavirus strain.
“Depending on their advice, the vaccine will be switched before the expiration date,” he said, adding that “there are already countries asking to sell it to them.”
“Our scientists will continue to discuss AstraZeneca vaccine use in South Africa,” explains Mkhize.
Local vaccine production
South Africa was slow to catch up with the global vaccination boom, receiving its first shots, one million AstraZeneca injections, on February 1.
An additional 500,000 doses have been purchased from the SII and will be delivered this month
Mkhize said the government’s ministerial advisory committee should be able to provide an informed opinion on how to deal with the AstraZeneca vaccines in the next two weeks, adding that the government also had Pfizer’s vaccine doses for health workers. secured.
Negotiations with Moderna, China’s Sinopharm and Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine are continuing.
Officials previously said the country had secured nine million single-dose J&J shots, and Mkhize said a deal could be finalized soon.
The J&J vaccine was 89 percent effective in preventing serious illness and 57 percent against moderate to severe illness in the South African portion of a global study.
Ninety-five percent of the infections seen in the local study were due to the 501Y.V2 variant first identified late last year.
The 501Y.V2 variant has alarmed health experts who have raised concerns about its ability to potentially evade the immune response generated by previous exposure to the coronavirus or vaccines.
South Africa’s neighbor eSwatini, formerly known as Swaziland, also said on Tuesday it would not use the AstraZeneca vaccine.