South Africa’s decision to pause a mass launch of the Oxford / AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine after a study showed it offered reduced protection against the South African variant is “only a temporary delay” and includes a new deployment strategy , Covid’s South African -19 Advisory Committee said Monday.
“This is just a temporary delay, but the way we will deploy it will be different as we take a two-step approach,” epidemiologist Salim Abdool Karim told Times Radio.
During a briefing on Sunday, Karim said that “if the vaccine proves not to be effective in reducing hospitalizations, we should offer these people another effective vaccine, either a booster of that vaccine … or give- another vaccine. So we can still continue with the launch, but we have to do it … with caution, taking a step-by-step approach. “
He stressed that the reason for this approach is because “we don’t really know the answer about serious illnesses.”
Early data released on Sunday suggests that two doses of the Oxford / AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine provided only “minimal protection” against the mild and moderate Covid-19 variant first identified in South Africa.
Viral neutralization against the variant, called B.1.351, was “substantially reduced” compared to the previous coronavirus strain, Oxford University said in a press release. The efficacy of the severe Covid-19 vaccine, hospitalization, and death was not evaluated.
Karim explained on Monday that South Africa will only carry out a massive implementation of the vaccine once they have the confidence to reduce hospitalization in 100,000 people infected with the variant first identified in the country.
The first step is to vaccinate probably around 100,000 individuals and then assess what the hospitalization rates are. And once we are sure that hospitalization rates are low with the AstraZeneca vaccine, we proceed to deploy the remaining million doses we have, ”said Karim.
“If it turns out that hospitalization rates aren’t as low as we’d like, it’s clear we’d stop and not launch any more AstraZeneca, so that’s the plan.”
South Africa’s vaccination program has been delayed by two to three weeks, Karim added, saying it is the time it takes for the Johnson & Johnson vaccine to arrive in the country.
“With all the vaccines we will be launching, we can consider it as a two-step process: it is a gradual introduction of each vaccine,” Karim explained.
However, the country is also struggling with its current million-dose dose of the Oxford / AstraZeneca vaccine which expires in April.
The vaccine should have an expiration date of six months, a Health Department official said in a briefing on Sunday, when the break was announced, but the doses of Oxford / AstraZeneca South Africa received earlier this month’s Serum Institute of India “arrived with an April expiration date that we only identified on arrival”.
Dr Anban Pillay of the Department of Health said the department is awaiting a response after asking the Serum Institute for “an extension of the date, if possible, or an exchange of stocks”.
During Sunday’s briefing, South African Health Minister Dr. Zweli Mkhize said Johnson & Johnson and Pfizer / BioNTech Covid-19 vaccines will be available to health workers over the next four weeks and will examine the expiration date of the Oxford / AstraZeneca number, saying no there should be “waste.”