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BL Premium reports that SA’s regulators have given Johnson and Johnson’s (J&J’s) Covid-19 vaccine the green light for a phase 3b trial in healthcare workers, paving the way for the government to begin dispensing shots to healthcare workers on Wednesday.
Last week, the government suspended its planned rollout of AstraZeneca’s vaccine, after preliminary findings from a small clinical trial found it offered minimal protection against mild to moderate Covid-19 caused by a new variant that now dominates transmission in SA. SA has yet to decide what to do with the AstraZeneca vaccines it has already procured, but it has quickly pivoted to J&J’s vaccine, which it plans to administer in a study with the Medical Research Council (MRC) to get around the fact that it is not yet commercially available. The first 80,000 doses of J&J’s vaccine, drawn from stock manufactured for clinical trials, are expected to arrive in SA from Belgium on Tuesday. They will then be transported under police and military guard to 17 large public hospitals designated as vaccination centres, with the first doses slated to be dispensed on Wednesday. Vaccines will be offered to healthcare personnel employed at the 17 hospitals and at nearby public and private health-care facilities. Each province has been allocated two vaccination sites with the exception of Northern Cape, which has just one. J&J has committed up to 500,000 doses for the study. They will arrive at 14-day intervals.
- Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Tamar Kahn at BusinessLive (paywall access only)
Get other news reports at the SA Labour News home page