AstraZeneca’s Vaccine Does Not Work Well Against Virus Variant in South Africa

Pfizer and Moderna have both said that preliminary laboratory studies indicate that their vaccines, while still protective, are less effective against B.1.351. Novavax and Johnson Johnson have also sequenced test samples from their clinical trial participants in South Africa, where B.1.351 caused the vast majority of cases, and both reported lower efficacy there than in the United States.

“These results are very much a reality check,” Shabir Madhi, a virologist at University of the Witwatersrand who ran the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine trial in South Africa, said of the findings released on Sunday.

The pause in the country’s rollout of the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine means that the first shipments will now be put in warehouses.

Instead, South African health officials said they would inoculate health workers in the coming weeks with the Johnson Johnson vaccine, which has shown strong efficacy in preventing severe cases and hospitalizations caused by the new variant.

Johnson Johnson has applied for an emergency use authorization in South Africa. But health officials there indicated that even before it is authorized, some health workers could be given the vaccine as part of an ongoing trial.

In the AstraZeneca-Oxford trial in South Africa, roughly 2,000 participants were given either two doses of the vaccine or placebo shots.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/07/world/africa/covid-vaccine-astrazeneca-south-africa.html