Posted on 04/09/2021 8:12:13 AM PDT by CondoleezzaProtege
The African Union's disease control body said on Thursday it had dropped plans to secure AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccines for its members from the Serum Institute of India, the world's biggest vaccine supplier, amid global shortfalls of the shot.
AstraZeneca's $3 shot is by far the cheapest coronavirus vaccine launched so far, and the easiest to store and transport, making it well suited to developing countries.
On Wednesday, European and British medicine regulators said they had found possible links between the vaccine and extremely rare cases of brain blood clots, while emphatically reaffirming its importance in mass vaccination against COVID-19.
John Nkengasong, head of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC), said the AU's decision had nothing to do with those findings, and reiterated his advice that the benefits of the vaccine outweighed the risks.
He said the main reason was to avoid duplicating COVAX's efforts by the World Health Organization-backed COVAX facility, which will continue to supply AstraZeneca to Africa.
He said the AU was focusing on the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, citing a deal announced last week to supply Africa with up to 400 million doses.
South Africa has cancelled orders of the AstraZeneca vaccine after finding it gave only minimal protection against mild-to-moderate infection caused by the country's dominant, highly infectious variant.
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
>>AstraZeneca’s $3 shot is by far the cheapest coronavirus vaccine launched so far
It’s the thought that counts. Blood clots are just society’s way of thinning the herd and taking the strain off of burdened welfare systems.
It’s not only that but South Africa dropped it early on because of its ineffectiveness.
J&J taking the business from AZ. 400M doses is about 1/3 of the population of Africa.
They will probably get a bunch of Chinese and Indian product as well. Egypt is getting the Russian Sputnik V.
I’ve heard good things about Sputnik. And instinctually I actually trust Russians with some things LoL.
We should send them all of our Baltimore production.
Sputnik V uses the same technical approach as AZ and J&J.
It is reported to be a bit less effective, but still well over the 50% standard we had for Operation Warp Speed candidates. It seems to have a good safety profile.
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