South Africa’s vaccine rollout is on hold – what happens next?
South Africa will temporarily halt the rollout of AstraZeneca Plc’s vaccine and accelerate its supply of shots from Johnson & Johnson and Pfizer Inc. after a trial showed the shot had limited efficacy against a new variant of the virus first identified in the country late last year.
The South African arm of the trial found that the shot from Astra and the University of Oxford had only 22% efficacy against mild and moderate illness, according to lead researcher Shabir Madhi on Sunday. There was no conclusive data showing whether the vaccine protects against severe illness, mainly because of the relative youth of the 2,000 trial participants, he said.
“We need to recalibrate our expectations,” Madhi said. “The results are very much a reality check.”
The data has cast doubt over the usefulness of the Astra-Oxford shot, which was the first coronavirus vaccine to arrive in South Africa last week and due to be rolled out by mid-February.
More than 90% of new cases in the country have the more contagious B.1.351 variant, which has been found in at least 30 other countries worldwide. Still, it would be “reckless” to dispose of the vaccine, which can be updated, Madhi said.
“Our scientists must tell us what do we do with AstraZeneca and how quickly can we bring it back to stream,” Health Minister Zweli Mkhize said. “The plan is to find out from scientists on how to deal with this going forward.”
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