S Africa seeks new vaccine plan after halting AstraZeneca

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — South Africa is considering giving a COVID-19 vaccine that is still in the testing phase to health workers, after suspending the rollout of another shot that preliminary data indicated is not effective at preventing mild to moderate illness from the variant dominant in the country.

The country is scrambling to come up with a new vaccination strategy after it halted use of the AstraZeneca vaccine — which is cheaper and easier to handle than others and which many had hoped would be crucial to combatting the pandemic in developing countries. Among the possibilities being considered: mixing the AstraZeneca vaccine with another one and giving Johnson & Johnson's single-dose vaccine, which has not yet been authorized for use anywhere, to 100,000 health care workers while monitoring its efficacy against the variant.

South Africa’s inoculation strategy is being watched globally because the variant first detected and now dominant here is spreading in more than 30 countries. Officials say this form of the virus is more contagious, and evidence is emerging that it may be more virulent; recent studies have also shown it can infect people who have survived the original form of the virus.

After a second surge, cases and deaths in South Africa have begun to fall recently, but it is still battling one of Africa’s most severe outbreaks, with more than 46,000 deaths. It is worried that another spike will come in May or June, when the Southern Hemisphere country heads into its winter.

So far, early results from trials of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine showed it offers less protection against the variant than the original disease but is still highly effective at preventing severe and fatal cases, according to Dr. Glenda Gray, director of the South Africa Medical Research Council, who led the South...