South Africa has sold leftover AstraZeneca vaccines, deeming them ineffective against the local strain

The South African Department of Health announced on Sunday the sale of half a million vaccines against the coronavirus from the AstraZeneca laboratory in fourteen African countries.

The country made the decision to divest from the doses, after a study determined that the development of AstraZeneca and Oxford offered a very low protection against the new South African strain.

South Africa had purchased over a million of these doses, but suspended his inoculation in early February, following the published study, although the South African health portfolio initially called the situation a “temporary problem”.

Subsequent studies at South African universities have given the clue that the South African strain could be transmitted even between people who have already been vaccinatedTherefore, the entry into the vaccination plan has been changed. Now they are vaccinating health workers with the doses produced by Johnson & johnson.

The remaining doses were sold to 14 African countries, although He did not transcend which ones or at what cost. This was confirmed by the South African Minister of Health, Zweli Mhkize, in a statement posted on the networks this Sunday, in which he showed “the joy to be able to announce that the sale of the AstraZeneca vaccines” that the African South had bought, “was concluded.

Mhkize added that “the full amount” of the transfer has already been collected, although he did not provide further details. Astrazeneca vaccines, made in India, were widely welcomed at an event hosted by President Cyril Ramaphosa on the same airport runway.

As the South African Minister of Health reported on the same Sunday, there were 1,537,852 confirmed cases of coronavirus in this country and 52,111 deaths. For the moment, they have been administered nearly 183 thousand vaccines in a population that exceeds 59 million inhabitants.

With AFP

DS