The possible less effect of the AstraZeneca vaccine against the South African corona variant is currently no reason to stop using the drug. The Outbreak Management Team (OMT) writes this Wednesday in an advice to the cabinet.
The South African variant has currently been diagnosed 54 times in the Netherlands. Authorities in South Africa recently decided, on the basis of a new study, to refrain from using AstraZeneca vaccines because they would be less effective there.
According to the OMT, the vaccine from AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford does offer protection against the classic and the British variant. More than half of all positively tested people have this more contagious variant.
“The gains that can be made by rapidly deploying the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine against these variants that are dominant in the Netherlands is great and currently outweighs the uncertain efficacy of the vaccine against severe COVID-19 caused by the South African variant” , the OMT writes.
‘Lack of knowledge is no reason not to use vaccine’
According to the advisory team, it is not sufficiently clear what the consequences will be for the Netherlands, which wants to use the AstraZeneca vaccine on a large scale, if the South African variant occurs here more often in the future.
“The lack of this knowledge cannot be a reason not to use the vaccine,” said the OMT, which believes that “not using this vaccine will lead to an unwanted and unnecessary delay in the implementation of the vaccination strategy” .
The AstraZeneca vaccine has been administered to people born in 1956 or 1957 via GPs since the beginning of this week. The drug also goes to people with Down’s syndrome and morbid obesity.
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