South Africa takes AstraZeneca vaccinations into account on variant data

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) – South Africa will use AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 shot in its vaccination program, after data showed it offers minimal protection against mild to moderate infection caused by the country’s dominant coronavirus variant.

Health Minister Zweli Mkhize said on Sunday that the government would wait for advice from scientists on how to work best, after a trial showed that the AstraZeneca vaccine did not increase the risk of mild or moderate COVID. 19 of the 501Y.V2 variant which is a second wave of infections that started late last year.

Prior to the widespread spread of the more contagious variant, the vaccine showed about 75%, researchers said.

In a later analysis, mostly based on infections by the new variant, there was only a 22% lower risk of developing COVID-19 to mild to moderate compared to those who received a placebo. Although researchers have said that the figure is not statistically significant, it is because of the design of the trial that it is far below the 50% standard that regulators have determined that vaccines can be considered effective against the virus.

The study did not assess whether the vaccine helped prevent serious COVID-19, as it mostly involves relatively young adults who are not considered to be at high risk for serious diseases.

AstraZeneca said on Saturday that it believes the vaccine can protect against serious diseases and that it is already starting to adapt to the 501Y.V2 variant.

Professor Shabir Madhi, lead researcher on the AstraZeneca trial in South Africa, nevertheless said that data on the vaccine was a reality check and that it was time to ‘recalibrate our expectations of COVID-19 vaccines’.

South Africa hopes to vaccinate 40 million people, or two-thirds of the population, to achieve some degree of herd immunity, but has not yet fired a single shot.

The company hoped to introduce the AstraZeneca vaccine to healthcare workers soon, and on Monday received 1 million doses manufactured by the Serum Institute of India (SII).

Instead, it will offer healthcare workers vaccinations developed by Johnson & Johnson and Pfizer / BioNTech.

‘What does this mean for our vaccination program, which we believe will start in February? The answer is that it will continue, “Mkhize said at an online news conference. “From next week for the next four weeks, we expect there will be J&J vaccines, and there will be Pfizer vaccines.”

NEW APPROACH

Professor Salim Abdool Karim, an epidemiologist advising the government, said there should be a new approach to vaccinations, given uncertainty about how effective current vaccines would be against the 501Y.V2 variant.

First, a vaccine in a targeted group should be used to determine hospitalization rates, and then, if it proves to be effective in reducing hospitalizations, it could occur in a large-scale implementation, he said.

If it was not effective in reducing hospitalizations, individuals who received it should be offered another effective vaccine, either a variant-based enhancer or another vaccine, Abdool Karim added.

It was likely that South Africa would experience a third wave of infections when winter begins in about four months, Madhi said.

He added that it would be ‘somewhat reckless’ to throw away the 1 million doses of AstraZeneca the country received when there was still a chance they could protect against severe COVID-19.

Anban Pillay, deputy director general of the Ministry of Health, said the expiration date for the doses of AstraZeneca was in April, but the government spoke to the SII to seek extension or exchange.

Madhi said that South Africa might want to reformulate its vaccine target group. “It needs to be really focused on preventing serious illness and death as a result of a revival that will be possible soon.”