AstraZeneca vaccine expires in April and not in six months’ time

The government had intended to roll out the AstraZeneca jabs to healthcare workers from as soon as this week.

The Department of Health’s Deputy Director-General Dr Anban Pillay, told an online press conference on Sunday evening that they are in communication with the Serum Institute of India to exchange the stock or extend the expiring date.

“The expiry date on the vaccines ordinarily are 6 months; unfortunately, these vaccines came through with an expiry date in April which we only identified on arrival.

“We have engaged the Serum Institute for an extension on the date if that’s possible or an exchange of stock so that we can have vaccines with a longer expiring date,” says Pillay.

 The rollout has now been put on hold following new developments regarding the efficacy of the vaccine.

Health Minister Dr Zweli Mkhize, also addressed the new developments, confirming that a new study has revealed that the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine may not have the same effectiveness against the 501Y.V2 variant which was first discovered in South Africa.

Mkhize says they decided to procure the AstraZeneca vaccine due to promising results and its flexibility.

Government secured the first vaccines before the study was complete.

“When we were dealing with the issue of vaccine acquisition the first question we were ask was why did we not put a bid in all vaccines, the results were not known so we had a difficulty in putting any bid when we didn’t have the results.

“Right now as we were coming to this the results were not out, but there were already indications of which vaccines were highly considered and amongst them AstraZeneca was that.

“In the process we then went for availability, which of this vaccines could be delivered as early as possible and again AstraZeneca was available before April,” says Mkhize.

Professor Salim Abdool Karim, one of South Africa’s leading Covid-19 experts, says vaccines made by Pfizer and Moderna seem to do reasonably well against the 501Y.V2 variant.

He believes the Johnson&Johnson vaccine will show a smaller decline in efficacy against the variant, making it a reasonable option for South Africa.

“COVID -19 vaccines remain effective against existing variants. The next set of vaccines will be made from the 501Y.V2 variant and so they are likely to be effective against the 501Y.V2 variant. We are expecting two kinds of vaccines: the first are 501Y.V2 boosters and we have already heard about the good progress they are making on these boosters,” added Karim.

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