South Africa has scrapped plans to use the Oxford-AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine and instead will inoculate its front-line healthcare workers with the unapproved Johnson & Johnson jab, the country’s health minister announced on Wednesday.

Zweli Mkhize said the vaccinations will begin next week as a study to see what protection it provides from Covid-19, particularly against the variant dominant in South Africa.

The J&J vaccines will be used to launch the first phase of the vaccination drive in which the country’s 1.25-million healthcare workers will be inoculated, he said.

He said the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine was scrapped because it “does not prevent mild to moderate disease” of the variant that has spread widely in South Africa.

The one-shot J&J vaccine is still being tested internationally and has not been approved in any country.

But Mkhize, in a nationally broadcast address, declared that the vaccine is safe, relying on tests of 44 000 people done in South Africa, the United States and Latin America.

“The Johnson & Johnson vaccine has been proven effective against the 501Y.V2 variant (dominant in South Africa) and the necessary approval processes for use in South Africa are under way,” said Mkhize.

“The roll-out of vaccination will proceed in the form of an implementation study with the partnership of the Medical Research Council and the National Department of Health vaccination sites across the country.

“This will provide valuable information about the pandemic in the post-vaccination community and thus, ensure early identification of breakthrough infections should they occur amongst vaccinated health workers.”

Those vaccines will be followed by a campaign to vaccinate an estimated 40 million people in South Africa by the end of the year.

South Africa will be using the Pfizer vaccine and others, possibly including the Russian Sputnik V and the Chinese Sinopharm vaccine, Mkhize said.