The government of South Africa is stopping the introduction of the AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine in the nation because the company’s vaccine has not proven effective against the South African variant, the New York Times reports.
The South African variant, known as B.1.351, is more contagious than the European variant that swept across the United States. It’s the dominant version in southern African, and cases of it have been identified in South Carolina and Maryland.
Clinical trials of the vaccine has been shown to be less effective in stopping mild to moderate cases of the strain. It also showed that people who had developed antibodies from previous infections of different strains did not have sufficient immunity against the South African strain.