ACD: African countries should use the AstraZeneca jabs

The Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director said African countries that have not found cases of the coronavirus variant dominant in South Africa should go ahead and use the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine.

John Nkengasong spoke to reporters a day after South Africa announced that it would not use the AstraZeneca vaccine, citing a small study that suggested it was poor at preventing mild to moderate disease caused by the variant.

Nkengasong said just seven countries on the 54-nation African continent have reported the variant and none besides South Africa is being “overwhelmed” by the variant.

None has expressed concerns about the AstraZeneca vaccine except for South Africa.

Nkengasong also said doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine are expected to start arriving in other parts of the African continent in the next two weeks.

The continent has seen an average 18% decrease in new virus cases over the past four weeks, which Nkengasong called encouraging.

But he warned that studies show that more people in Africa have been exposed to the virus than the 3.7 million cases confirmed so far.

Africa has had more than 96,000 confirmed deaths.