South Africa halts AstraZeneca vaccinations

[My Pet Orangutan]

Last edited Sun Feb 7, 2021, 05:39 PM - Edit history (1)

Source: Reuters

JOHANNESBURG (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.


Read more: https://www.reuters.com/article/health-coronavirus-safrica-idUSL1N2KD0GE

[My Pet Orangutan]

1. Kick

[Initech]

2. Game over for AstraZeneca.

[My Pet Orangutan]

3. Which is a shame because they are supplying the vaccine to poorer countries at cost.

It works very well with the older variants.

[Initech]

9. Maybe they can adjust it to combat the new variants.

The way that Pfizer and Moderna are doing. All the research is saying that we're going to have to get booster shots every year, I guess that's a small price to pay.

[DeminPennswoods]

4. Doesn't seem like an especially well-designed trial

The study did not assess whether the vaccine helped prevent severe COVID-19 because it involved mostly relatively young adults not considered to be at high risk for serious illness.

[My Pet Orangutan]

6. Soouth Aftica's priority was to get health care workers and essential services

vaccinated first.

[JI7]

7. Don't they have a younger population there ?

[CountAllVotes]

5. K&R

The truth is the truth!

[roamer65]

8. I believe the best of the bunch are Moderna and Pfizer.

They are easily modified to deliver an updated mRNA payload for newer variants, if needed.

[My Pet Orangutan]

11. The mRNA vaccines can be reformulated within days of a new variant appearing.

[roamer65]

12. Yup. I think this fall there will be a Moderna booster for the new variants.

Pfizer as well.

[LisaL]

15. Adenovirus based vaccines can be reformulated just as easily.

All you do is add mutations to the sequence.

[reader1]

10. More mutations possible

The current rate of vaccine distribution will allow the virus to mutate once again and may render them much less effective. Sadly a very bleak picture ahead of us.

[progree]

13. Interesting, S. Africa daily new cases (7 day moving avg) are in sharp decline

based on the slope of the 14-day trendline that pops up when one mouses over (hovers over) South Africa on the map.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/world/coronavirus-maps.html

Unfortunately it doesn't have any more info displayable on South Africa.

They are at 6.0 daily cases per 100,000 (7 day moving average).

compare to U.S. 37, Brazil 22, U.K. 29.

[LisaL]

14. They are probably reaching herd immunity.

Although there is summer there right now. So they might get hit again in winter.

[progree]

16. Maybe. Although their cumulative total cases per million population is 1/3 of ours

but their level of testing is a lot lower too.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

U.S.       South Africa
 83,122    24,701   Total Cases per million population
974,793    142,167   Total Tests per million population
1,430         775   Total deaths per million population