South Africa has taken a U-turn after it suspended plans to vaccinate its front-line health-line workers with the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine after finding through a clinical trial which suggested that the vaccine isn’t effective in preventing the illness from progressing from mild to moderate stage from the variant dominant in the country.
South Africa which received its first 1 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine the previous week had planned the inoculation phase to begin mid-February for health care workers. The demotivating preliminary results indicate that a vaccination drive using the AstraZeneca vaccine may not produce satisfactory results.
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Zweli Mkhize the South African Health minister said that the African variant appears more hazardous and infectious and is driving a deadly resurgence of the disease in the country, and is currently accounting for approximately 90 percent of the COVID-19 cases.
The study involved 2,000 people, most of whom were middle-aged about 31 years and young and healthy has yet not been reviewed or verified by any competent authority.
Oxford University and the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg issued a statement regarding the same saying that protection against moderate-severe disease, hospitalization or death is unprecedented and unassessed as the target population was at such low risk”.
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Other peer vaccine manufacturers have shown reduced efficacy against the variant, however provide good protection from serious disease and death.
Public health officials have expressed concerns about the South Africa variant as it is a mutation of the virus’s characteristic spike protein.
South Africa will roll out ASAP other vaccines to inoculate as many as possible in the oncoming months, Mkhize said. Other South African scientists have reported that the clinical trials for the Johnson & Johnson vaccine have shown good results against the African variant.
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The preliminary results for the AstraZeneca vaccine against the African variant could have far-reaching complications as many other countries in Africa and beyond have been planning to use the AstraZeneca shot. The international COVAX initiative has helped the nation as it received a bulk order from Serum Institute of India which has bought the AstraZeneca vaccine.
Authorities in England last week went door-to-door to administer COVID-19 testing in eight areas where the African variant is believed to be fast-spreading after a handful of cases were found in people who had no contact with the country or anyone who traveled there.
