Research out of South Africa has found the Oxford/AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine is not effective against the South African variant of the virus.
Photo: AFP
In the study, which was published this morning in the New England Journal of Medicine, a little more than thousand people were fully vaccinated using the AstraZeneca shot, and another thousand received a placebo.
Similar numbers in each group caught the South African variant of Covid-19.
The New Zealand Government has purchased enough of the AstraZeneca vaccine to innoculate 3.8 million people, though New Zealanders will receive the Pfizer vaccine this year.
University of Auckland vaccinologist, Helen Petousis-Harris, told Māni Dunlop it could still be helpful for New Zealand to go through for its AstraZeneca purchase agreement.
