South Africa has suspended the use of the Oxford/AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine in its immunisation programme until a committee of scientists advises on the best way to proceed.
Scientists in South Africa said on Sunday that a similar problem held for people who had been infected by earlier versions of the coronavirus: The immunity they acquired naturally did not appear to protect them from mild or moderate cases when they were reinfected by the variant, known as B.1.351.
The developments, coming nearly a week after a million doses of the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine arrived in South Africa, were an enormous setback for the country, where more than 46,000 people are known to have died from the virus .
Preliminary data from a small study suggested that the AstraZeneca vaccine offers only “minimal protection against mild-moderate disease” caused by the variant in South Africa. The variant appears more infectious and is driving a deadly resurgence of the disease in the country, currently accounting for more than 90% of the COVID-19 cases, health minister Zweli Mkhize said sunday night .
The news has caused concern that the vaccines now available will prove
insufficient to end the crisis on their own and manufacturers are
already working on new versions that will offer protection against variants .
No comments:
Post a Comment