JOHANNESBURG, South Africa
South Africa on Tuesday said that it would offer its doses of Oxford/AstraZeneca COVID vaccine to the African Union (AU) after they were found to have little impact on mild infections caused by a variant of the virus first identified in the country last year.
“The
doses we purchased have been offered to the African Union to distribute to
those countries who have already expressed interest in acquiring the stock,”
Health Minister Zweli Mkhize said.
“There
will be no wasteful and fruitless expenditure.”
South
Africa had acquired a million doses of Covishield, a copy of the vaccine made
by the Serum Institute of India, and was set to receive an additional 500,000.
“Reports
that the shots had expired and will be returned to India were untrue, and no
money will be wasted,” Mkhize said.
The AU,
through its African Vaccine Acquisition Task Team (AVATT), has secured some 270
million doses of anti-COVID vaccine for the continent and last week said it
would not “walk away” from the AstraZeneca formula.
It
recommended countries where the South African variant has not been detected to
proceed with the rollout.
South Africa
has now settled for the yet-to-be-approved Johnson & Johnson vaccine,
securing nine million doses, including 80,000 expected to be delivered this
week
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