One week after receiving with great fanfare its first million doses of AstraZeneca vaccine against Covid-19, the South African government has just temporarily suspended the deployment of its vaccination program even before it begins. In fact, the viral vector vaccine, developed by the British laboratory AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford, has experienced setbacks in recent weeks, its effectiveness having been questioned for people over 65 years of age and in countries where the variants are present. This is unfortunately the case for South Africa, which is very affected. Suddenly, the government said it was ready, Wednesday, to resell or exchange a million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine, for the benefit of that of Johnson & Johnson.
Change of strategy
On Sunday, the authorities had suspended the vaccination program which was to begin in the following days with the AstraZeneca / Oxford vaccine, after a study revealing in particular a “limited” effectiveness against the new South African variant of the virus, called 501Y.V2. According to the first results of this study from the South African University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, the AstraZeneca / Oxford vaccine is only 22% effective against moderate forms of the South African variant. No results are yet available on its effectiveness against severe forms.
South African Minister of Health Zweli Mkhize on Wednesday announced that “given the results of the efficacy studies, [le gouvernement] will continue the planned first phase of vaccination using the Johnson & Johnson vaccines instead of the AstraZeneca vaccine ”. “The effectiveness of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine against the 501Y.V2 variant has been proven,” he said, without specifying the launch date of the campaign. The government of South Africa, the African country hardest hit by the coronavirus, has set a goal of vaccinating 40 million people, or 67% of its population, by the end of the year. For this purpose, he had received the 1is February one million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine, which in theory should expire at the end of April, and 500,000 more had also been ordered.
Among the options studied after the abandonment of this vaccine, the government plans to sell or exchange its lots with countries affected by the original strain of coronavirus. “According to their opinions, the vaccines will be exchanged before the expiration date”, declared Zweli Mkhize, assuring that “there are already countries which ask to sell it to them”. “Our scientists will continue to deliberate on the use of the AstraZeneca vaccine in South Africa,” he said. Some have raised the possibility of administering it to several thousand people in the country to assess its effects on severe forms of contamination with the 501Y.V2 variant.
A vaccination campaign that is moving away
Currently, nine million doses of Johnson & Johnson vaccines have been ordered, with a first delivery, in small quantities, expected next week. The first shipment will probably be used as “research stock”, said the minister. South African pharmaceutical company Aspen, licensed manufacturer of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, “is very committed to ramping up production in South Africa,” Zweli Mkhize said, saying these first doses would be available in April. Contacted by AFP, Aspen said he had “no more information” on an agreement with Johnson & Johnson and that any comment was “premature”.
After delaying the launch of the global vaccine race, the South African government is also seeking to procure other vaccines from the American laboratory Pfizer, as well as through the Covax mechanism, set up by the World Organization of health (WHO) to try to guarantee an equitable distribution of the means to fight against Covid-19. South Africa is hit by a second wave of coronavirus, largely caused by a local variant known to be much more contagious than the original virus. Since the start of the pandemic, the country has recorded nearly 1.5 million cases of contamination and more than 46,800 deaths from the coronavirus.
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