During a meeting on Sunday, South African Health Minister Dr Zweli Mkhize said the retention would be temporary while scientists figured out how to deploy the AstraZeneca vaccine more effectively. Mkhize said that South Africa will move forward with the deployment of vaccines made by Pfizer / BioNTech and Johnson & Johnson.
Early data released on Sunday suggest that two doses of the Oxford / AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine provided only “minimal protection” against mild and moderate Covid-19 from the variant first identified in South Africa.
The study, which was not released, included about 2,000 volunteers with an average age of 31; about half received the vaccine and the other half, a placebo, which does nothing.
Details of the study by researchers at the University of Witwatersrand in South Africa and others, as well as at the University of Oxford, were shared in a press release. The results were subjected to peer review and a pre-press will be launched soon, said Oxford.
CNN contacted AstraZeneca for comment.
A company spokesman said in a statement on Saturday that he is working with the University of Oxford to adapt the vaccine against variant B.1.351 and that it will lead to clinical development so that it “is ready for delivery in the fall, if necessary. “.
On Sunday, Maria Van Kerkhove, technical leader of the World Health Organization for Covid-19, said that the WHO independent vaccine panel will meet on Monday to discuss the AstraZeneca vaccine and what the new study means for the advancement of vaccines.
Van Kerkhove said on CBS’s “Face the Nation” program that “some preliminary studies suggesting reduced efficacy. But again, those studies have not yet been fully published.”
She added that it is essential to have more than one safe and effective vaccine: “We cannot rely on just one product.”