South African variant could significantly reduce Pfizer vaccine protection, study suggests

Nurses await the arrival of healthcare workers due to receive a dose of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine at a hospital near Durban on Thursday

Credit: Mlungis Mbele/AFP

However, real-world but preliminary data from trials of Covid-19 vaccines from AstraZeneca and Novavax have already shown their efficacy is significantly reduced against the variant first identified by South African genomics experts late last year.

"I do know that our scientists will be meeting to discuss it [the Pfizer study] and they will advise the minister," health ministry spokesman Popo Maja said. "We are not going to be releasing a statement until advised by our scientists."

Barry Schoub, a professor and the chairman of the ministerial advisory committee on vaccines, said scientists would be holding their regular weekly meeting later in the day and would discuss the study alongside information on other Covid vaccines.

Asked to comment on the findings, he told Reuters: "The Pfizer vaccine is enormously effective at 95 per cent, so even if there is quite a significant reduction there still will be quite a bit of remnant efficacy left. It is very likely that it will protect to a reasonable extent, certainly against severe illness, and mild to moderate to some extent. That’s the expectation."

Monitoring recommended

Linda-Gail Bekker, a professor and the co-lead investigator in the local arm of Johnson & Johnson’s global phase III trial, said she would recommend that the country does the same kind of monitoring of the Pfizer vaccine that it will do for Johnson & Johnson’s jab, which is being rolled out in an "implementation study" to further evaluate it in the field.

"We should make sure we do see the effectiveness we [are] hoping for," she told Reuters.

Zweli Mkhize, the South African health minister, said on Wednesday that the country was expecting 500,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine initially and about seven million doses by June.

A spokesman for regulator SAHPRA said Pfizer’s registration application was currently under review and declined to make further comment.

South Africa, with nearly 1.5 million cases and about 48,500 deaths, has recorded almost half the Covid fatalities and over a third of confirmed infections in all of Africa. It has lagged wealthier Western nations in launching its immunisation campaign.