South Africa scraps roll-out of AstraZeneca vaccine | Al Jazeera

South Africa has scrapped plans to use the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine and instead will inoculate its front-line healthcare workers with the unapproved Johnson & Johnson jab, the country’s health minister announced on Wednesday.

Zweli Mkhize said the vaccinations will begin next week as a study to see what protection it provides from COVID-19, particularly against the variant dominant in South Africa.

The J&J vaccines will be used to launch the first phase of the vaccination drive in which the country’s 1.25 million healthcare workers will be inoculated, he said.

He said the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine was scrapped because it “does not prevent mild to moderate disease” of the variant that has spread widely in South Africa.

The one-shot J&J vaccine is still being tested internationally and has not been approved in any country.

But Mkhize, in a nationally broadcast address, declared that the vaccine is safe, relying on tests of 44,000 people done in South Africa, the United States and Latin America.