Faizel Patel – 08/02/2021
Health Minister Dr Zweli Mkhize says government is uncertain about what impact the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine will have on hospitalization, severe diseases and death.
Mkhize was speaking to Al Jazeera following the announcement that the rollout of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine has been put on hold.
Scientific data released on Sunday revealed that the vaccine offered “minimal protection” against mild disease for people infected with the second variant of the coronavirus while clinical trial data locally revealed that it had a 22% efficacy against the 501Y.V2 coronavirus variant.
Mkhize says more work needs to be done on the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine.
“What we will take from Professor Shabir Madhi is that some more work needs to be done on this issue because the results from other countries has been quite satisfactory. But there are issues in South Africa that we need to study a bit more. So it’s a temporary issue.”
Mkhize says there are ongoing discussions about other COVID-19 vaccines.
“There are discussions going on Sputnik V, the Sinopharm, the department and ministerial advisory committee are dealing with that. There are discussions going on with Moderna and we will also need to explore all Novavax because that one there had not been much of discussion.”
Some provinces were preparing to start vaccinating their healthcare workers this week but the programme has been stalled.
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