{"id":466406,"date":"2021-02-08T14:02:17","date_gmt":"2021-02-08T12:02:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=466406"},"modified":"2021-02-08T14:02:17","modified_gmt":"2021-02-08T12:02:17","slug":"south-africa-hopes-to-get-johnson-johnson-covid-19-vaccines-this-week","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/466406\/south-africa-hopes-to-get-johnson-johnson-covid-19-vaccines-this-week\/","title":{"rendered":"South Africa hopes to get Johnson &#038; Johnson Covid-19 vaccines this week"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>South Africa hopes to get some doses of Johnson &amp; Johnson\u2019s (J&amp;J) Covid-19 vaccine before the end of this week, says Department of Health deputy director-general Anban Pillay.<\/p>\n<p>In an interview with the SABC, Pillay said the J&amp;J vaccine has shown in trials to be highly effective in preventing hospitalisation and death, and said it was an advantage that it was a one-shot vaccine that could be stored at fridge temperatures.<\/p>\n<p>However, he did not indicate how many doses of the vaccine country is likely to receive, while the vaccine has not yet received official authorisation from regulator Sahpra.<\/p>\n<p>President Cyril Ramaphosa previously said that South Africa had secured nine million J&amp;J doses that were due to start arriving in the second quarter of 2021.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/00yA3974ptU\" width=\"640\" height=\"430\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><span data-mce-type=\"bookmark\" style=\"display: inline-block; width: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 0;\" class=\"mce_SELRES_start\">\ufeff<\/span><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>On Sunday (7 February), the Department of Health said that it would put the distribution of a million Oxford\/AstraZeneca vaccines on hold,\u00a0citing concerns around its efficacy.<\/p>\n<p>Professor of Vaccinology at Wits University, Shabir Madhi, said that a vaccine trial done by his team found that there is no proof of the vaccine\u2019s full efficacy against the local variant of Covid-19.<\/p>\n<p>Madhi said that up until the end of October 2020, the vaccine showed \u2018potential\u2019 and individuals who took a single dose were 75% less likely to be infected.<\/p>\n<p>However, the emergence of the 501.V2 variant in South Africa means that the Oxford\/AstraZeneca vaccine is not as effective.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen we analysed individuals in terms of how well the vaccine worked against the variant, there was very little difference between the vaccine group and placebo group,\u201d Madhi said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHowever Covid vaccines really remain the only sustainable option of reducing risk of severe disease and death.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Professor Salim Abdool Karim, one of South Africa\u2019s leading Covid-19 experts, said there is hope that the Johnson &amp; Johnson vaccine will show a smaller decline in efficacy against the variant, making it a plausible choice for rollout.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Read: <a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/466394\/south-africas-vaccine-rollout-is-on-hold-what-happens-next\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">South Africa\u2019s vaccine rollout is on hold \u2013 what happens next?<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>South Africa hopes to get some doses of Johnson &#038; Johnson\u2019s (J&#038;J) Covid-19 vaccine before the end of this week, says Department of Health deputy director-general Anban Pillay.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":466434,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-466406","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466406","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=466406"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466406\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":466432,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466406\/revisions\/466432"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/466434"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=466406"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=466406"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=466406"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}