South Africa Halts Astrazeneca’s COVID-19 Vaccine After Questions of its Effectiveness Against Variants
JOHANNESBURG — South Africa has suspended plans to inoculate its front-line health care workers with the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine after a small clinical trial suggested that it isn’t effective in preventing mild to moderate illness from the variant dominant in the country.
South Africa got its first 1 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine last week and was expected to begin giving shots to health care workers in mid-February. The disappointing early results indicate that an inoculation drive using the AstraZeneca vaccine may not be useful.
Preliminary data from a small study suggested that the AstraZeneca vaccine offers only “minimal protection against mild-moderate disease” caused by the variant in South Africa. The variant appears to be more infectious, and it is driving a deadly resurgence of the disease in the country, accounting for more than 90 percent of the Covid-19 cases, Health Minister Zweli Mkhize said Sunday night.
