South Africa's Astra Vaccine Snub Raises Serious Questions
A shot seen as a key tool in the Covid-19 fight has been sidelined in at least one country. What are the implications?
A halt in the use of the Astra-Oxford vaccine in South Africa is concerning, but there are still powerful tools in the virus fight.
Photographer: Jerome Delay/APSam Fazeli, a Bloomberg Opinion contributor who covers the pharmaceutical industry for Bloomberg Intelligence, answered questions about the implications of South Africa’s decision this week to temporarily halt the rollout of the AstraZeneca Plc-Oxford University vaccine after a trial showed the Astra shot had limited efficacy against a new variant of the virus that emerged there. In the meantime, the country will speed up its supply of shots from Johnson & Johnson and Pfizer Inc.-BioNTech SE. The conversation has been edited and condensed.
What’s the rationale behind this move? Isn’t the Astra shot effective against the virus?