South Africa side­lines As­traZeneca's vac­cine af­ter it failed to pro­tect against new vari­ant in a study, rais­ing glob­al alarms

South Africa is slam­ming the brakes on the roll­out of As­traZeneca and Ox­ford Uni­ver­si­ty’s Covid-19 vac­cine af­ter da­ta showed it did not pro­tect against mild-to-mod­er­ate cas­es caused by the B.1.351 vari­ant, which is now wide­spread in the coun­try.

Pro­fes­sor Sal­im Ab­dool Karim, one of South Africa’s lead­ing Covid-19 ex­perts, told re­porters in a brief­ing on Sun­day that the coun­try is putting a tem­po­rary hold on the ad­min­is­tra­tion of one mil­lion As­traZeneca vac­cines that have al­ready been de­liv­ered.

Endpoints News

Unlock this article instantly by becoming a free subscriber.

You’ll get access to free articles each month, plus you can customize what newsletters get delivered to your inbox each week, including breaking news.