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JOHANNESBURG, Feb 7 (Reuters) - South Africa will suspend
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.
Health Minister Zweli Mkhize said on Sunday the government
would await advice from scientists on how best to proceed, after
disappointing results in a trial conducted by the University of
the Witwatersrand.
The government had intended to roll the AstraZeneca shot out
to healthcare workers soon, after receiving 1 million doses
produced by the Serum Institute of India on Monday.
Instead, it will offer vaccines developed by Johnson &
Johnson and Pfizer in the coming weeks while
experts consider how the AstraZeneca shot can be deployed.
"What does that mean for our vaccination programme which we
said will start in February? The answer is it will proceed,"
Mkhize told an online news briefing.
"From next week for the next four weeks we expect that there
will be J&J vaccines, there will be Pfizer vaccines. So what
will be available to the health workers will be those vaccines."
"The AstraZeneca vaccine will remain with us ... up until
the scientists give us clear indications as to what we need to
do," he added.
(Reporting by Alexander Winning and Olivia Kumwenda-Mtambo;
Editing by Alexander Smith)
