South Africa suspends the use of AstraZeneca vaccine
Today, Sunday, South Africa has swept away the Coronavirus vaccination campaign that was scheduled to start within a few days. After a study "limited" showed the effectiveness of the "AstraZeneca" vaccine in preventing the mild and moderate symptoms of the local mutant from the epidemic.
The Minister of Health said, in a statement to reporters during a video conference, that waiting for vaccination with the AstraZeneca vaccine is temporary. Waiting to clarify these issues.
"The AstraZeneca vaccine provides limited protection from mild and moderate symptoms of infection with the South African mutation from the Coronavirus," said a statement about a study conducted by the University of Vittversrand in Johannesburg, on Sunday.
But in a document that will be published on Monday, AstraZeneca confirmed that none of the study's 2,000 participants had any symptoms of severe symptoms.
This may mean that the vaccine is effective in severe disease cases, noting that the currently available data do not allow for a settlement of this issue.
On Monday, South Africa received the first batch of vaccines amounting to one million doses, and the country expects to receive an additional 500,000 doses this month. All doses are from AstraZeneca vaccine produced by the Serum Institute in India.
The minister explained that “the total number of 1.5 million doses of AstraZeneca vaccine allocated to South Africa is. And which expires in April, will be kept pending the guidance of scientific experts on it. ”
The country has so far recorded about 1.5 million COVID-19 cases and more than 46,000 deaths.
