Health Minister Zweli Mkhize says South Africa would rather start a vaccination campaign with Johnson & Johnson shots.
South Africa is considering trading its doses of AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine and instead launching its vaccination campaign with Johnson & Johnson shots, the health minister said.
The country, which has been hit hardest by the pandemic in Africa, has suspended the explosion of vaccines that would start the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine this week after a study found that the sting could not prevent mild to moderate diseases that was caused by a variant called 501Y.V2 in South Africa.
The vaccine has drawn up an ambitious plan to vaccinate 4021 people – 67 percent of the population – by 2021.
‘Given the outcomes of the efficacy studies [the government] will proceed with the planned phase one vaccination using the Johnson & Johnson vaccines instead of the AstraZeneca vaccine, ”Health Minister Zweli Mkhize said in a press release on Wednesday.
“The Johnson & Johnson vaccine has been shown to be effective against the 501Y.V2 variant.”
He did not say when the vaccination would begin.
Officials are also deciding on the fate of more than one million Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccines that have already been secured by the Serum Institute of India (SII) and will expire at the end of April, although the date may be adjusted.
Mkhize pointed to several options, including selling the doses or exchanging with countries that tackle the original coronavirus strain.
“Depending on their advice, the vaccine will be exchanged before the expiration date,” he said, adding: “there are already countries asking to sell it to them”.
“Our scientists will continue to discuss further the use of the AstraZeneca vaccine in South Africa,” Mkhize explained.
Local vaccine production
South Africa was slow to catch the global vaccine and only got its first push on 1 February, one million AstraZeneca shots.
An additional 500,000 doses have been purchased from the SII and should be delivered this month
Mkhize said the ministerial advisory committee could give a considered opinion on how to handle the AstraZeneca vaccines in the next week or two, adding that the government has also secured doses of Pfizer for health workers.
Negotiations with Moderna, China’s Synopharm and on the Russian Sputnik V vaccine continue.
Officials earlier said the country had secured nine million J&J single-dose shots, and Mkhize said a deal could be finalized soon.
The J&J vaccine was 89 percent effective in preventing serious diseases and 57 percent effective against moderate to severe diseases in the South African leg of a global trial.
Ninety-five percent of the infections observed in the local study were due to the 501Y.V2 variant that was only identified last year.
The 501Y.V2 variant upset health experts who expressed concern about the ability to evade the immune response previously exposed to the coronavirus or vaccines.
South Africa’s neighbor eSwatini, formerly known as Swaziland, also said on Tuesday that he would not use the AstraZeneca vaccine.