Vaccines vs variants: how Africa’s vaccine plans were hindered by a mutation

Three in four doses purchased by the African Union are less effective against the South African strain.

(Photo By PHILL MAGAKOE/AFP via Getty Images)

As countries around the world roll out and accelerate their vaccination programmes and early evidence emerges of their real-life effects, attention is turning to how these programmes will be affected by the global spread of new and potentially more dangerous variants of Covid-19.

The new South African strain in particular is causing difficulties for countries in the developing world, which are having to rethink their procurement and delivery strategies to deal with the mutations.

var pymParent = new pym.Parent(“doses-purchased”, “https://d24oiq7ava1ind.cloudfront.net/live/nsmg-049/doses-purchased/index.html?c=South%20Africa,African%20Union,Egypt,Algeria, Morocco&t=African%20countries%20have%20largely%20relied%20on%20the%20AstraZeneca%20vaccine%20so%20far”, {});

var pymParent = new pym.Parent(“vaccine_mix_v_transmission”, “https://nsmg-projects-public.s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/live/2021-02/vaccines_vs_variants/vaccine_mix_v_transmission.html”, {}); #vaccine_mix_v_transmission iframe { width: 100%}