Johannesburg - South Africa Medical Research Council chief executive Professor Glenda Gray says the roll-out of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine should be fast-tracked as research evidence had proved the vaccine’s effectiveness in protecting against the severe effects of the coronavirus.
The government has halted the use of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine which was initially expected to be rolled out to thousands of health-care workers this week. The country received its ordered 1 million doses of the vaccine last week from the Serum Institute of India.
Since then research released by Wits University has shown disappointing results about the vaccine's ability to provide protection against the coronavirus variant first identified in the country in November.
Health Minister Dr Zweli Mkhize, along with a group of scientists, addressed the nation on Sunday night on the latest vaccine procurement news.
Professor Shabir Madhi from Wits University said research conducted on vaccine participants had shown that the AstraZeneca vaccine's ability to prevent mild to moderate effects of Covid-19 were diminished when tested against the 501Y.V2 variant. This is the most dominant variant in the country at present.
The results of the research, which was conducted on more than 2 000 participants last year, showed that the AstraZeneca vaccine was only 22% effective against the new strain.
Madhi described the news as disappointing. However, he pointed out that it was not all doom and gloom as there were other vaccines that had shown promise against the 501Y.V2 variant.
The Johnson & Johnson vaccine was one of them, having been shown to be 57% effective in preventing the severe effects of the virus and also in helping to protect against hospitalisation and death.
This is the vaccine, along with the Pfizer vaccine, that the country will be fast-tracking in the coming weeks and will be administering to health-care workers.
In his address last week, President Cyril Ramaphosa indicated that the country would be receiving 9 million doses from Johnson & Johnson along with 20 million doses from Pfizer. These were only expected in the second quarter.
The SA Health Products Regulatory Authority has also indicated that both Johnson & Johnson and Pfizer have applied for vaccine distribution in the country.
Mkhize said the two vaccines would be administered in the next few weeks, but that more scientific research would be conducted on what should happen to the AstraZeneca vaccine doses that will remain shelved for now.
"For the next four weeks we expect that there will be a Johnson & Johnson vaccine and there will be a Pfizer vaccine. So what will be available to the health-care workers will be those vaccines. The AstraZeneca vaccine will remain with us up until the scientists give us a clear indication as to what we need to do about the doses," Mkhize said.
Gray said time frames were crucial and that the Johnson & Johnson vaccine had to be rolled out as soon as possible as there was already evidence on its ability to protect against the severe effects of the coronavirus.
"The Johnson & Johnson vaccine protects against severe disease and hospitalisation and death with the current variant. We have data from South Africa that shows that we can use this vaccine to protect against death and hospitalisation.
“And we are looking at further data about how this vaccine impacts on mild disease. It is a silver bullet. Yes, it won't protect against the sniffles, but it will protect against death and hospitalisation," she said.
"We cannot wait. We have local data now and it would not be good to wait for future vaccines. We have to start with the data that we have," she added.
Gray and Mkhize insisted that there would be ongoing monitoring of the effectiveness of the vaccine.
"It is not a trial and error," Gray said.
Deputy director-general at the Health Department Dr Anban Pillay said the department was in contact with the Serum Institute of India over the six-month expiry date of the AstraZeneca vaccine.
"The expiry date on the vaccines (is) usually six months. Unfortunately these vaccines came in with an expiry date in April, which we only identified upon arrival. We have engaged the Serum Institute for an extension of the date if that is possible, or an exchange of the stock," Pillay said.