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GENEVA, Feb 8 (Reuters) - South Africa will roll out the
AstraZeneca vaccine in a "stepped manner" to assess its efficacy
in preventing severe illness, Professor Salim Abdool Karim,
co-chair of South Africa’s Ministerial Advisory Committee on
COVID-19, said on Monday.
South Africa said on Sunday it would put on hold its use of
the AstraZeneca shot after research showing it was only
minimally effective in preventing mild illness against a variant
of the coronavirus now dominant in the country.
Karim said it was too early to say whether the AstraZeneca
vaccine would still be effective in preventing serious disease,
as there was not yet enough data on its effectiveness in older
people against the variant.
South Africa would pause the rollout for now while
determining the next steps, and could vaccinate 100,000 people
with the shot to see how well it worked on preventing
hospitalisations and deaths.
"We don't want to vaccinate people with a product which may
not prevent hospitalisation or reduce disease," Karim said.
(Reporting by John Revill, Stephanie Nebehay, Emma Farge and
Peter Graff; Editing by Mark Heinrich)
