Only 22 Percent Effective, South Africa Suspends Use Of The AstraZeneca COVID-19 Vaccine

JAKARTA - South African authorities have temporarily suspended the COVID-19 vaccination program after a study found that the AstraZeneca vaccine may not be effective against the new variant of the virus.

These results were obtained from a study conducted by the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, that the British vaccine provided only limited protection for moderate illness caused by the South African variant of COVID-19 in young adults.

However, the results of this study have not been reviewed by researchers or other authorized studies.

"This is a temporary problem. We have to suspend the Astrazeneca vaccine until we finish it", Health Minister Zweli Mkhize said at an online press conference on Sunday, February 7, reported Euronews.

According to preliminary results, the vaccine is only 22 percent effective against moderate forms of the virus. No results are available yet regarding its effectiveness against severe forms.

Falling behind in the global vaccine race, South Africa, officially the worst-affected country on the continent with more than 1.5 million cases and more than 46.000 deaths, received its first shipment of a million vaccines on Monday. Delivery of 500.000 additional doses is expected in February.

All of them are AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccines produced by the Serum Institute of India and the first dose is intended to be given to 1.2 million health workers in the country.

"In the next four weeks, we will get the Johnson & Johnson and Pfizer vaccines", said Mkhize.

"Discussions with other laboratories are also ongoing, in particular with Moderna and the Russian vaccine producer Sputnik V", he added.

As previously reported, the South African Authority recently announced that it has reserved 20 million doses of Pfizer/BioNTech's COVID-19 vaccine.