Currently, pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca is developing a new vaccine designed to combat the South African covid-19 strain. The development of the vaccine began in February of this year. However, back then, the company postponed the vaccination rollout because the drug showed low efficacy against the South African strain of coronavirus.
Clinical trials of a new vaccine from AstraZeneca have started jointly with the University of Oxford. Notably, 2,250 people from the UK, South Africa, Brazil, and Poland will take part in testing the drug. The new vaccine, like the previous one, is based on the adenovirus vector.
In late December 2020, the South African authorities discovered a new strain of coronavirus. Another mutation of the coronavirus caused the second wave of the pandemic. The new strain turned out to be more contagious and hit the young generation in South Africa the hardest. Most often, they did not have concomitant diseases but still, the course of the disease was very severe.
The South African strain of coronavirus turned out to be 50% more contagious than its previous mutations. According to clinical studies, it penetrates more easily into human cells and stays in them longer. The new variant of COVID-19 is extremely dangerous due to the risk of re-infection, while the developed vaccines are not very effective in combating it, the National Laboratory Health Service of South Africa emphasizes.
Due to the spread of a new strain of coronavirus, the country's authorities refused the usage of the AstraZeneca vaccine. This happened after the statements of scientists from Oxford and the University of the Witwatersrand (South Africa). They reported low efficacy of the AstraZeneca vaccine against the South African variant. As a result, a new batch of AstraZeneca vaccines was sold to other countries.
