Faizel Patel – 09/02/2021
Wits University director of vaccines and infectious diseases Professor Shabir Madhi says while the AstraZeneca vaccine does not provide protection against the second variant of the Coronavirus, it does provide protection against severe diseases.
Professor Madhi was speaking to Radio Islam on Tuesday about the suspension of the rollout of the AstraZeneca vaccine by government.
The decision was made after a new study found that the vaccine provided minimal protection against the 501Y.V2 variant of the COVID-19 virus
- Is the AstraZeneca vaccine still useful?
“There is strong indication based on a similar vaccine based on the Johnson and Johnson vaccines which uses the same technology and which induces the same response which has been shown to protect against severe disease with an 89% reduction in terms of the likelihood of developing severe disease.”
- Is Government to blame?
“Absolutely not. There is no way that anyone could’ve seen globally. In fact this is the first study globally which has basically reported that we might be facing issues around this variant and other similar variants which are circulating as an example in Brazil. There is no government in the world that could have foreseen this. It would have been irresponsible of government not to continue pursuing getting vaccines for South Africa.”
- Is it still worthwhile to take the AstraZeneca vaccine?
“There is the Johnson and Johnson vaccine that is going to be rolled out as early as next week and I think the AstraZeneca vaccine will slowly start be rolled as well. But again, both of these vaccines are not going to protect against mild infection, they are mainly going to be protecting against severe disease. So that means that people will still unfortunately get infected should there be a resurgence and especially if the resurgence results from another virus that mutates even further.”
- Does the expiry date of the AstraZeneca vaccine complicate the issue?
“The company has been requested to see if they can actually extend the expiry date. So they need to do some stability testing to make sure that the potency of the vaccine has changed if you extend it by two or three months. But if the company is unable to provide evidence that the vaccine would be stable beyond the expiry date, than it’s not uncommon for companies to do that. Then South Africa would need to work really fast in terms of deploying whatever vaccine it’s got available to it.”
- Will the third wave of the Coronavirus hit before the blessed month of Ramadan?
“You need to be a fortune teller to be exact about when it’s going to happen and we all know about fortune tellers. But all indications are that based on a number of factors, we probably would end up with another resurgence probably around May or June as we head into the winter period as people are more likely to come indoors and being in closed poorly ventilated spaces.”
Madhi says the biggest driver including the resurgence that we experienced during November and December was us engaging in mass gatherings.
Listen to the interview with Professor Shabir Madhi
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