Guy urges Gov’t to check for South African COVID strain - AstraZeneca vaccine said to offer minimal protection against variant

Amid growing concern among experts that current vaccines may not protect people from the South African variant of the coronavirus, an opposition lawmaker says the Government must move quickly to check whether the strain is in the country.

Six cases of the variant have been detected in the USA. South Africa has suspended its rollout of the AstraZeneca vaccine after data suggested it only offered "minimal protection" against the new strain.

Jamaica is to start inoculating the population with the AstraZeneca vaccine in April. However, Dr Morais Guy, the opposition spokesman on health, said that knowledge of the strains in Jamaica is important in determining the public health response.

"There is scientific evidence coming now that although the UK strain is still responsive to the AstraZeneca vaccine that we are going to get, there is scientific evidence coming out of South Africa that their strain will not be responsive to the AstraZeneca vaccine, although they are doing further studies ... That strain has spread to many countries, including the United States, and it would be prudent for us as a country to ascertain what levels of what strains we have in Jamaica because me might be going down and doing a vaccination with AstraZeneca, having a strain that it has no effect against, and then we are on a frolic of our own," Guy said.

Sent off 14 positive samples

Prime Minister Andrew Holness, in a statement to Parliament yesterday, said that the Ministry of Health and Wellness has sent off 14 positive samples from travellers from the UK to the Caribbean Public Health Laboratory for genome sequencing to determine the strains. He said that another 101 samples randomly selected would be sent to the lab later this week.

"The results from genome sequencing will give us better insights into how prevalent the new variants may be in Jamaica," Holness said.