JOHANNESBURG (AP) – South Africa will administer unapproved Johnson & Johnson vaccine to front-line health workers starting next week as a study to see what protection it offers from COVID-19, especially against the dominant variant there, Health Minister said Wednesday.
Zweli Mkhize said South Africa had canceled plans to use the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine because it “does not prevent mild to moderate disease” of the variant.
The unique J&J vaccine is still being tested internationally and has not been approved in any country.
But Mkhize, in a nationwide address, said the vaccine was safe, based on tests of 44,000 people in South Africa, the United States and Latin America.
The J&J vaccine will be used to launch the first phase of the South African campaign to inoculate 1.25 million health workers, he said, adding that workers will be closely monitored.
“The Johnson & Johnson vaccine has proven effective against the 501Y.V2 variant and the approval process required for use in South Africa is underway,” he said. The J&J vaccine has been in clinical trials in South Africa and is in production here under contract from J&J.
These photos will be followed by a vaccination campaign for about 40 million people in South Africa by the end of the year. The country will also use the Pfizer vaccine and others, including Russian vaccines Sputnik V, Chinese Sinopharm and Moderna, Mkhize said.
South Africa had bought 1.5 million doses of AstraZeneca vaccine, produced by the Indian Serum Institute, and the first millions of doses arrived this month. The first AstraZeneca photos were intended for front-line health workers.
The dominant variant at the local level is more contagious and has led to a recurrence of COVID-19, which has caused almost twice as many cases, hospitalizations and deaths as a result of the initial increase in the disease in South Africa.
South Africa and many other poor African countries have looked at the AstraZeneca vaccine because it is cheaper and does not require storage in ultra-cold freezers. It is also produced in large quantities in India for transportation elsewhere.
An additional complication for South Africa is that its doses of AstraZeneca arrived with an expiration date of April 30. South Africa is looking to change them, Mkhize said.
South Africa has by far the largest number of COVID-19 cases on the African continent, with almost 1.5 million confirmed, including almost 47,000 deaths. This represents 41% of the total for all 54 nations in Africa.
After a resurgence that increased in early January, cases and deaths are now declining, but medical experts are already warning that South Africa should prepare for a new rise in May or June, the beginning of the southern hemisphere winter.