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By Alexander Winning
JOHANNESBURG, Feb 8 (Reuters) - The lead investigator on the
South African trial of AstraZeneca's vaccine said he
believed the vaccine had a major role to play in Africa and
globally, despite data showing it offered minimal protection
against mild-to-moderate COVID-19 disease by the country's
dominant virus variant.
Shabir Madhi from the University of the Witwatersrand in
Johannesburg told Reuters he would begin rolling out the 1
million AstraZeneca doses already in the country immediately,
since they expire in April and it would be reckless to waste
them.
"It doesn't make any sense to have 1 million doses of
vaccine available to us which are known to be safe and to not
start distributing it at least for high-risk groups," Madhi said
in an interview.
South African health officials said on Sunday they were
putting AstraZeneca vaccinations on hold temporarily while they
sought scientific advice on how to proceed. Vaccinations had
been due to start soon, after the first vaccine doses arrived by
plane from India last week.
The country, which has recorded the most coronavirus
infections on the African continent and over 46,000 deaths, aims
to vaccinate 40 million people, or two-thirds of its population,
to reach some level of herd immunity.
Madhi said it was likely the AstraZeneca shot would protect
against severe COVID-19, since it was developed using a similar
technology to the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, which had
shown to be effective in preventing severe COVID-19.
(Reporting by Alexander Winning
Editing by Alison Williams and Bernadette Baum)
