Health care workers at the Ndlovu Care Group in rural northeastern South Africa are eagerly awaiting the first jabs of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, which will be given out to medical staff starting this week. That’s despite the fact that the one-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine — unlike the two-shot Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna and Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccines — has not been approved for general use anywhere in the world. South Africa, with nearly 1.5 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 including more than 47,000 deaths, has had 41% of Africa’s reported cases. Health officials decided to change to the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, which tests show is safe and effective against the variant here. The Ndlovu center is running a study of the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine with 602 people from the community participating.

Source: Egypt Independent February 16, 2021 08:15 UTC