South Africa scraps AstraZeneca, pivots to Johnson & Johnson vaccine

[Taka]

I came across this news while reading about the issues in Europe. It's from a month ago, but I didn't see any threads on it.

South Africa scraps AstraZeneca, pivots to Johnson & Johnson vaccine | CNN

South Africa has offered its stock of Oxford-AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccines to the African Union, a senior health official said, as the country pivots to using shots developed by Johnson & Johnson instead.

www.cnn.com

South Africa has offered its stock of Oxford-AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccines to the African Union, a senior health official said, as the country pivots to using shots developed by Johnson & Johnson instead.

The country paused its rollout of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine after preliminary trial data showed it offered minimal protection against mild to moderate illness caused by the variant of the virus that emerged in South Africa last year.

"The AU will distribute to those countries who have already expressed interest in acquiring the stock," South African Health Minister Zweli Mkhize told lawmakers in Cape Town on Tuesday.

Click to shrink...

Developed by Janssen, Johnson & Johnson's Belgium-based vaccine division, the single-dose vaccine has shown to be effective in preventing moderate and severe disease from South Africa's dominant coronavirus variant with an efficacy of 57% in trials conducted in South Africa. The B.1.351 variant was responsible for 95% of cases in that trial, and has now appeared in more than 44 countries.

"We have actually secured enough doses to vaccinate all the people who will need to be vaccinated in South Africa," said Mkhize.

Click to shrink...

The rollout marks a 180-degree pivot by South Africa, which had received 1 million doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine and planned to begin administering doses to health care workers in February. Another 500,000 Oxford-AstraZeneca doses were due to be delivered by the end of the month.

Instead, South Africa has switched to a new plan. It will start vaccinating health care workers with Johnson & Johnson shots in a research study. Officials will administer shots to health workers at 20 vaccination centers in each of the country's nine provinces. More than 380,000 health workers have registered so far.

Click to shrink...

 

[Joni]

It was covered extensively in other threads, which is why it wasn't separated.

AstraZeneca vaccine provides limited protection against mild disease from South African variant; protection from severe disease still unknown News

This is grim https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-55967767

www.resetera.com

 

[MaffewE]

Yeah, this has been discussed pretty heavily in various threads over the past month.