J&J halt leaves South Africa without a Covid vaccine

South Africa’s decision to suspend the use of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine after preliminary reports of rare blood clots has left the country without any shots as it struggles to combat an aggressive coronavirus variant.

South Africa has more than 1.5 million confirmed cases of Covid19, including at least 53,000 deaths, representing more than 30 per cent of all the confirmed cases in Africa’s 54 countries. So far, it has inoculated 290,00 healthcare workers, all with the J&J vaccine.

South Africa’s plans to begin largescale vaccinations next month are dependent upon deliveries of millions of doses of the Johnson & Johnson and the Pfizer-biontech vaccines. The government said it expects to vaccinate 40 million of the nation’s 60 million by February 2022.

The health minister said South Africa has not had any reports of blood clots in vaccine recipients, the issue that led the US Food and Drug Administration this week to recommend a pause in the use of the J&J vaccine. Some health experts criticised South Africa’s move to follow the US at such a critical juncture.

“Johnson & Johnson is our only [vaccine] option currently. I really did not expect that we would need to pause,” Mosa Moshabela, professor of public health at the University of Kwazulu-natal said.

He said it’s likely South African health officials will be able to resume use of the J&J vaccines soon, although the disruption could contribute to vaccine hesitancy.

The National Health and Allied Workers, however, welcomed the pause to ensure J&J’S product is safe, union spokesman Khaya Xaba said.

This is not the first abrupt change South Africa has made in its vaccination strategy. In February, the country scrapped its plans to give the Astrazeneca vaccine to its healthcare workers because a small, preliminary test showed that it gave minimal protection against mild to moderate cases of Covid-19 caused by the variant dominant in South Africa.

It was then that South Africa quickly pivoted to the use of the J&J vaccine. The country had already participated in an international clinical trial of the vaccine without any problems. The vaccine also has been found to have good efficacy against the variant dominant in South Africa.

The country has ordered 30 million doses of the Johnson & Johnson

vaccine and 30 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine.

The J&J vaccine is being given to South Africa’s 1.2 million healthcare workers as a large-scale research study, because the vaccine has not yet been approved for general use in South Africa.

Rashika Alberlito, an intensive care unit administrator at a private hospital in Kwazulu-natal province, was injected last month with the J&J vaccine. She is now extremely worried: she was hospitalised for nearly two weeks in 2015 because of a blood clot in one of her lungs. Alberlito remains on blood-thinning medication, and the news about the possible link between the J&J vaccine and blood clots concerned her.

“I asked about the safety of the vaccine given my condition, and I was assured it was safe,” she said. “I hope the test results would confirm no causal link between the blood clots and the vaccine.”

Many South Africans are hoping the J&J vaccine will be deemed safe.

Moshabela said it was urgent South Africa vaccinate millions of people as soon as possible. He hopes the suspension will not last long.

Potential problems with the J&J vaccine could affect all of Africa, as the African Union recently secured orders for 220 million doses to be used across the continent.

“The last thing that we want to have is any cloud of doubt around any vaccines in Africa and the world.

said John Nkengasong, director of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.