(Adds quotes from health minister)
PARIS, Feb 8 - French Health Minister Olivier Veran said on
Monday that he continued to support the AstraZeneca
COVID-19 vaccine, arguing it provided sufficient protection
against "nearly all the variants" of the virus.
Veran was shown on French television receiving the
AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine at a vaccination centre in the city
of Melun, in the Paris region.
"The AstraZeneca vaccine reinforces and amplifies our
vaccination strategy", Veran told reporters.
"We do our best to prevent the spread of variants", he also
said.
A British junior health minister said on Monday there was no
evidence that the AstraZeneca vaccine did not prevent death or
serious illness, and added South Africa had only imposed a
temporary halt on using the vaccine.
South Africa decided to put on hold use of AstraZeneca's
COVID-19 shot in its vaccination programme after data showed it
gave minimal protection against mild-to-moderate infection
caused by the country's dominant coronavirus variant.
(Reporting by Sudip Kar-Gupta, Dominique Vidalon and Matthieu
Protard; Editing by Jon Boyle and Louise Heavens)