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(CNN) – South African health officials said Sunday they are pausing the nation’s rollout of AstraZeneca’s coronavirus vaccine after a study showed it offered reduced protection against the COVID-19 variant first identified there.
During a briefing on Sunday, South African Health Minister Dr. Zweli Mkhize said the suspension would be temporary while scientists figure out how to more effectively implement the AstraZeneca vaccine. Mkhize said South Africa will move forward with the deployment of vaccines made by Pfizer / BioNTech and Johnson & Johnson.
The first data released on Sunday suggests that two doses of the Oxford / AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine provided only “minimal protection” against mild and moderate Covid-19 of the variant first identified in South Africa.
The study, which has not been published, included about 2,000 volunteers who were an average of 31 years old; about half got the vaccine and the other half got a placebo, which does nothing.
Viral neutralization against the B.1.351 variant was “substantially reduced” compared to the previous strain of coronavirus, the researchers said in a news release. The efficacy of the vaccine against severe Covid-19, hospitalization and death was not evaluated.
Details of the study by researchers from South Africa’s University of the Witwatersrand and others, as well as the University of Oxford, were shared in a press release. The results were submitted for peer review and a preliminary version will be published soon, Oxford said.
CNN has reached out to AstraZeneca for comment.
A company spokesman said in a statement Saturday that it is working with Oxford University to tailor the B.1.351 variant vaccine and would advance it through clinical development so that it is “ready for fall delivery if it were necessary”.
On Sunday, Maria Van Kerkhove, the World Health Organization’s technical director for Covid-19, said the WHO’s independent vaccine panel will meet Monday to discuss the AstraZeneca vaccine and what the new study means for vaccines. in the future.
Van Kerkhove said on CBS’s “Face the Nation” that “some preliminary studies suggest reduced efficacy. But again, those studies are not yet fully published.”
He added that it is essential to have more than one safe and effective vaccine: “We cannot rely on just one product.”
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