Reuters: South Africa Halts AstraZeneca Rollout On Fears It Doesn't Stop Mild Illness

Reuters: South Africa Halts AstraZeneca Rollout On Fears It Doesn't Stop Mild Illness
Protection against moderate-severe disease, hospitalisation or death could not be assessed in the study as the target population were at such low risk, the researchers said. ... Professor Shabir Madhi, lead investigator on the AstraZeneca trial in South Africa, said the vaccine’s similarity to another produced by Johnson & Johnson, which reduced severe disease by 89%, suggested it would still prevent serious illness or death. “There’s still some hope that the AstraZeneca vaccine might well perform as well as the Johnson & Johnson vaccine in a different age group demographic that I address of severe disease,” he told BBC radio. (Faulconbridge and Holton, 2/8)