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* South Africa puts AstraZeneca vaccinations on hold
* Study: shot gives minimal protection against mild
infection
* Britain says Astra shot stops death and severe illness
* Concerns rise over longer fight against virus
(Recasts headline and lead)
By Guy Faulconbridge and Kate Holton
LONDON, Feb 8 (Reuters) - South Africa halted the rollout of
AstraZeneca's COVID-19 vaccinations after data showed it gave
minimal protection against mild infection from one variant,
stoking fears of a much longer cat-and-mouse battle with the
pathogen.
The novel coronavirus has killed 2.3 million people and
turned normal life upside down for billions but new variants of
the virus have raised fears that vaccines will need to be
tweaked and people may have to have booster shots.
Researchers from the University of Witwatersrand and the
University of Oxford said in a prior-to-peer analysis that the
AstraZeneca vaccine provided minimal protection against mild or
moderate infection from the so-called South African variant
among young people.
"This study confirms that the pandemic coronavirus will find
ways to continue to spread in vaccinated populations, as
expected," said Andrew Pollard, chief investigator on the Oxford
vaccine trial.
"But, taken with the promising results from other studies in
South Africa using a similar viral vector, vaccines may continue
to ease the toll on health care systems by preventing severe
disease."
The AstraZeneca vaccine was the big hope for Africa as the
continent hoped the shot - which is easier to store and
transport than the Pfizer vaccine - so halting its rollout in
South Africa is a major blow.
An analysis of infections by the South African variant
showed there was only a 22% lower risk of developing
mild-to-moderate COVID-19 versus those given a placebo.
If vaccines do not work as effectively as hoped against new
and emerging variants, then the world could be facing a much
longer and more expensive battle against the virus than
previously thought.
While thousands of individual changes have arisen as the
virus mutates on replication and evolves into new variants, only
a tiny minority are likely to be important or change the virus
in an appreciable way, according to the British Medical Journal.
VACCINE SHOCK
While the lead investigator on the trial said that recent
data indicated that protection against severe disease was likely
from the vaccine, the study raised the prospect of repeated
vaccination against a changing virus.
Professor Shabir Madhi, lead investigator on the AstraZeneca
trial in South Africa, said the vaccine's similarity to another
produced by Johnson & Johnson, which reduced severe disease by
89%, suggested it would still prevent serious illness or death.
"There's still some hope that the AstraZeneca vaccine might
well perform as well as the Johnson & Johnson vaccine in a
different age group demographic that I address of severe
disease," he told BBC radio.
Sarah Gilbert, professor of vaccinology at the University of
Oxford, said efforts were underway to develop a new generation
of booster shot vaccines that will allow protection against
emerging variants.
"This is the same issue that is faced by all of the vaccine
developers, and we will continue to monitor the emergence of new
variants that arise in readiness for a future strain change,"
she said.
UK IS 'CONFIDENT'
The Astrazeneca COVID-19 vaccine prevents death and serious
illness and is effective against the main variants of the virus
in the United Kingdom, though people may have to have a booster
shot as it mutates, a junior health minister said on Monday.
"There is no evidence that this vaccine is not effective in
preventing hospitalisation and severe illness and death, which
ultimately is what we're seeking with these vaccines today,"
British junior health minister Edward Argar told Sky.
"The dominant strains in this country are not the South
African strain, there are a small number of cases of that, the
dominant strains here are the historic one we've had, and then
the Kent variant, against which this vaccine is highly
effective."
Argar said just 147 people had been known to have been
infected with the South African variant in Britain, though he
allowed that booster shots - such as against the common flu -
might be needed in the future as the virus mutates.
"It would be just be normal in a sense as we did with the
flu vaccine to update it to catch anything the virus is trying
to do to keep ahead of it," he said.
(Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge and Kate Holton; editing by
Michael Holden and Angus MacSwan)
