Breaking: South Africa plans to ‘share’ 1 mln shots of AstraZeneca vaccine via African Union

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Breaking: South Africa plans to ‘share’ 1 mln shots of AstraZeneca vaccine via African Union

2:15 CAT | 16 Feb 2021

File photo: Reuters

South Africa plans to share a million AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine doses it received from the Serum Institute of India with other African countries via the African Union (AU), a senior health official said on Tuesday.The country paused the rollout of the AstraZeneca shots this month, after preliminary trial data showed they offered minimal protection against mild to moderate illness from the country’s dominant coronavirus variant.

Also read: South Africa suspends Oxford/AstraZeneca COVID vaccine roll-out – Watch

Watch: AstraZeneca deal was sealed before new variant in South Africa – minister

It plans to start inoculating healthcare workers with Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine as soon as this week in a research study. [Watch the SABC News interview below].

“The doses are going to be shared with countries on the continent … via the AU,” Anban Pillay, deputy director-general at the Department of Health, told Reuters.

He added that South Africa would look to recover money spent on the vaccine but was still finalising how to do that.

Pillay said it was not true that South Africa had asked the Serum Institute to take back the million doses that arrived at the start of the month, as reported by Indian newspaper The Economic Times.

Also read: South Africa asks Serum Institute to take back 1 million vaccine doses-report

The AU’s disease control body said last week it was not “walking away” from AstraZeneca’s vaccine but would target its use in countries that have not reported cases of the more contagious 501Y.V2 variant first identified in South Africa late last year.

The AU said six countries other than South Africa had confirmed the variant was circulating, but there are concerns it has spread elsewhere.

AstraZeneca says it believes its vaccine protects against severe COVID-19 and that it has started adapting it against the 501Y.V2 variant.

Sputnik documentation

South Africa’s health ministry said the manufacturers of Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine had submitted documentation to local medicines regulator SAHPRA for registration.

The ministry said it was “continuously engaging” with the manufacturers of Sputnik V and that it had signed a non-disclosure agreement with China’s Sinopharm to receive more information about its vaccine.

It added that scientists were conducting detailed analyses on Sputnik V, following concerns about the effects of its Ad5 component on communities with a high prevalence of HIV.

South Africa has one of the highest HIV burdens globally.

SAHPRA did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The World Health Organisation says the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine has shown efficacy against severe diseases to prevent hospitalisation and death. This comes as a recent study revealed that there was minimum protection in mild to moderate infections of the 501Y.V2 strain – which was first identified in South Africa. SA Government has halted the rollout of the vaccination programme to better understand how the vaccine reacts to the locally found strain. The Chairperson of the Ministerial Advisory Committee on COVID-19 vaccines Professor Barry Schoub.

Watch the SABC News interview below.