South African government puts vaccination programme on hold

South African government puts vaccination programme on hold
Just one week after welcoming the arrival of the first batch of one million doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has halted the rollout of the vaccine.
Compounding the political and economic crisis facing his African National Congress (ANC) government, the debacle threatens the political survival of the ANC.
Cyril Ramaphosa (credit: Tasnim News Agency)
The decision follows preliminary studies suggesting that the vaccine offered minimal protection against mild and moderate forms of disease caused by the new B1.351 coronavirus variant (also known as 501.V2) accounting for 90 percent of COVID-19 infections in South Africa. The new variant is now spreading across the world, although many countries lack the capacity to detect the new strain on a systematic basis.

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