Minister of Health department, Dr. Zweli says the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine batch is expected to arrive in South Africa next week. This follows the suspension of AstraZeneca after it was discovered that the vaccine has 22% efficacy in preventing mild to moderate cases of the new variant in the country.
The chairperson of the government’s ministerial advisory committee on Covid-19 Professor Salim Karim during the world health organization briefing said he anticipates that the start of the country’s immunization plan will only be pushed back a few days. He said that the first inoculations would now be done with the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, which delivered vastly better efficacy results against the virus’ second variant. “Instead of rolling out the AstraZeneca vaccine, we’ll be rolling out the Johnson & Johnson vaccine and that will give us a bit of time and leeway to ensure that we’re collecting the necessary data as we roll out the AstraZeneca in a stepwise process.”
Karim further said that using Johnson & Johnson won’t affect the initial start of the rollout plan “It doesn’t really, materially affect our start date, it may affect the rate at which we escalate if we start running short of doses, but as it stands it should not affect much else.”
