South Africa has stopped using the AstraZeneca vaccine after it emerged that it provides minimal protection against the South African coronavirus variant, which currently prevails in the country.
Reuters reports that Health Minister Zweli Mkhize made the announcement on Sunday after disappointing results of a trial conducted by the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg.
The market area reports that the South African government intended to export the doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine on Monday, but now rather offers the vaccines developed by Johnson & Johnson and Pfizer.
“The AstraZeneca vaccine will stay with us … until the scientists give us clear indications on what we should do,” Mkhize said.
The South African variant of the coronavirus is believed to be more contagious, and data have shown that it is more resistant to existing vaccines than the previous strain of the coronavirus. The vaccines created by AstraZeneca, Pfizer and Moderna are thought to be effective against the British variant.
The announcement comes a day after Sarah Gilbert, the Oxford University’s vaccine researcher, said that a modified version of the AstraZeneca vaccine that would be effective against the South African strain would probably be available by the autumn. be.
“This year we expect to show that the new version of the vaccine will generate antibodies and recognize the new variant. And then it will be a lot like working on flu vaccines, so people will be familiar with the idea that our new components “Every year new strains in the flu vaccine,” Gilbert told the BBC on Saturday.
According to Gilbert, the new modified version will require less time and fewer clinical trials than the original vaccine.