South Africa stops Astra Zeneca vaccinations because they are ineffective. A new version is expected
As expected by many, the Astra Zeneca vaccine is not very effective against the very aggressive new variants of the virus. For this reason, the South African Minister of Health, Zweli Mkhize, said on Sunday that the government will suspend vaccinations with the Anglo-Swedish product pending indications on how to best proceed after the disappointing test data on the 501Y.V2 variant, that is the one that appeared. right in his country since the end of last year. Recent data shows that an overwhelming number of newly diagnosed cases in South Africa are related to the new variant, so it is useless to use an ineffective drug.
In words that should give goosebumps to all those who fear perpetual vodi-19, a government epidemiology consultant, Professor Salim Abdool Karim, warned that there must be a new approach to immunizations, as there there is great uncertainty about the efficacy of current vaccines against the 501Y.V2 variant.
Oxford lead researcher Sarah Gilbert, who has produced the vaccine in the past, said that the technology exists, that it is simple to adapt to new variants, and therefore it is expected to have a new variant of the vaccine by the end of the year that it will also be effective against new variants:
Oxford Vaccine lead researcher Prof Sarah Gilbert tells #Marr the #CoronavirusVaccine has a "reduction in efficacy" against the South African variant but "there is still protection against deaths, hospitalisations and severe disease" https://t.co/bQfOn3vEfS pic. twitter.com/g7dX4oO7D6
– BBC Politics (@BBCPolitics) February 7, 2021
Unfortunately, in the past Gilbert has been too optimistic about the timing of vaccine development, causing expectations that have not come true.
Variants are also developing due to the severe delay in vaccinations that is encountering all over the world: we are practically giving the virus all the time to mutate before eradicating it. A programming error that we risk paying dearly in the future.
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The article South Africa stops Astra Zeneca vaccinations because they are ineffective. A new version is expected from ScenariEconomici.it .
This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/il-sud-africa-interrompe-le-vaccinazioni-astra-zeneca-perche-inefficaci-si-attende-nuova-versione/ on Mon, 08 Feb 2021 21:33:39 +0000.