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By Rudolph Nkgadima, Zintle mahlati 
3h ago
Cape Town: The launch of the AstraZeneca vaccine, which was scheduled to begin in South Africa this month, is now on temporary hold, Health Minister Zweli Mkhize announced on Sunday.
Mkhize said that implementation will be suspended until a committee of scientists has decided the way forward.
The government intended to launch the AstraZeneca shot at healthcare workers soon, after receiving 1 million doses produced by the Serum Institute of India on Monday.
Instead, it will offer vaccines developed by Johnson & Johnson and Pfizer in the coming weeks as experts consider how the AstraZeneca injection can be implemented.
“What does that mean for our vaccination program that we said will start in February? The answer is that it will continue,” Mkhize said at an online news conference.
“Starting next week, for the next four weeks, we expect there to be J&J vaccines, Pfizer vaccines. So what will be available to healthcare workers will be those vaccines.
“The AstraZeneca vaccine will remain with us … until scientists give us clear directions on what to do,” he added.
Wits professor Shabir Madhi told a news conference on Sunday that trial results show the AstraZeneca vaccine was less effective against mild and moderate forms of the coronavirus variant B.1.351 first identified in the country. He said it was “disappointing” and a reality check.
Madhi said that the recruitment of the more than 2,000 participants began towards the end of the first wave, but while the study was underway, the new variant began to spread in the country, especially in the Eastern Cape and became a dominant part. of the second wave of the pandemic.
Madhi said the evidence gathered showed that the AstraZeneca vaccine was less effective against the new variant. Before October 31, when the trial began, the results were promising and likely to protect against mild cases of the virus. The results had shown that the vaccine was 75% effective with a single dose in 14 days. These same results could not be replicated based on the new variant.
He said the question of whether the AstraZeneca vaccine would be effective against severe forms of the virus had not been answered, as the study was not intended to answer that question. A larger study would be needed, Mahdi said.
He said that if the virus had not mutated, the results would have been promising.
Madhi said it was not all “doom and gloom,” as vaccines like the one-dose vaccine offered by Johnson & Johnson offered more promising effectiveness against the SA variant and severe forms of the virus.
Professor Glenda Gray agreed that the early results of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine were more promising and that the vaccine could be a “miracle solution.”
The single-dose vaccine was shown to be 85 percent effective in preventing serious illness and death in the 501Y.V2 variant.
“We are in advanced talks to further evaluate the single injection Covid vaccine in South Africa on an expedited basis,” said Gray.
Mkhize told members of the health portfolio committee on Friday that the country would also receive 9 million doses from Johnson & Johnson, 20 million from Pfizer and 12 million from Covax facilities.
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