South Africa conducted a clinical trial that showed that vaccines by Serum Institute offer minimal protection against Coronavirus strain active in the country, after which South Africa stopped its COVID-19 vaccination program. Owing to this finding, South Africa has now decided to return approximately 1 million vaccine doses back to Serum Institute. These doses were supplied to South Africa in early February.
South Africa had stopped the AstraZeneca Oxford COVID-19 vaccine program after disappointing results from trial data showed it gave minimal protection against mild to moderate infection caused by the country’s dominant coronavirus variant.
Serum Institute of India had recently supplied 1 million doses of its COVID-19 vaccine to South Africa and was about to send another 5 Lakh doses in coming weeks.
As per South Africa’s health minister the AstraZeneca vaccine offered minimal protection against the 501Y.V2 coronavirus variant which is dominant in South Afri...