Health Minister Zweli Mkhize says South Africa will launch an inoculation campaign with shots from Johnson & Johnson.
South Africa is considering changing its COVID-19 vaccine doses from AstraZeneca and starting its inoculation campaign with Johnson & Johnson shots, the health minister said.
The country, the hardest hit by the pandemic in Africa, has suspended the launch of the vaccine that was due to start this week with the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine after a study found that the sting did not prevent mild illnesses and moderate caused by a variant discovered in South Africa called 501Y.V2.
The delay in vaccination has delayed an ambitious plan to inoculate some 40 million people, 67% of the population, by the end of 2021.
“Taking into account the results of efficacy studies [the government] will continue vaccination in the first phase planned using Johnson & Johnson vaccines instead of the AstraZeneca vaccine, “Health Minister Zweli Mkhize said on Wednesday.
“The Johnson & Johnson vaccine has been shown to be effective against the 501Y.V2 variant.”
He did not say when vaccination would begin.
Officials are also deciding on the fate of more than one million Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccines already protected by the Indian Serum Institute (SII) and which will expire in late April, although that date could be adjusted.
Mkhize noted several options, such as selling or exchanging doses with countries that treated the original strain of coronavirus.
“According to his advice, the vaccine will be changed before the expiration date,” he said, adding that “there are already countries asking them to sell.”
“Our scientists will continue with other deliberations on the use of the AstraZeneca vaccine in South Africa,” Mkhize explained.
Local vaccine production
South Africa took a long time to catch the global vaccine problem and received its first blows, a million shots from AstraZeneca, on 1 February alone.
An additional 500,000 doses have been purchased at SII and are due to be delivered this month
Mkhize said the Government Ministerial Advisory Committee should be able to give a considered view on how to treat AstraZeneca vaccines in the next week or two, adding that the government had also secured doses of Pfizer vaccine for health workers.
Negotiations with Moderna, China’s Sinopharm and Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine continue.
Officials previously said the country had gotten nine million single-dose shots from J&J, and Mkhize said a deal could be finalized soon.
The J&J vaccine was 89% effective in preventing serious disease and 57% effective against moderate to severe disease in the South African part of a global trial.
Ninety-five percent of infections observed in the local study are due to the 501Y.V2 variant first identified late last year.
The 501Y.V2 variant has alarmed health experts who have expressed concerns about its ability to potentially elude the immune response generated by prior exposure to coronavirus or vaccines.
South Africa’s neighbor eSwatini, formerly known as Swaziland, also said Tuesday it would not use the AstraZeneca vaccine.