South Africa is exploring ways to deploy AstraZeneca's COVID-19 vaccine, advisers have announced. It comes after the country temporarily put on hold plans to roll it out to healthcare workers after it highlighted findings suggesting the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine may offer limited protection against mild disease caused by the COVID-19 variant discovered there.

The African nation, according to the Sky News, has initially planned to start rolling out one million doses of the AstraZeneca jab later this month.

But it now plans to start its vaccination programme with Johnson & Johnson shots in mid-February, after the US company promised to expedite deliveries.

On Tuesday, members of the government's Ministerial Advisory Committee said the plan was not to discard the AstraZeneca shots.

Rather, their use would be suspended until more evidence was available on whether the vaccine protects against severe COVID-19 from the South African variant, which is more contagious and currently accounts for more than 90 percent of the country's cases.

"AstraZeneca may well have a place, it may well have a significant place. This is only a suspension, not turfing it out," Professor Barry Schoub told Reuters. 

"We have got in South Africa a problem with the variant, it all hinges on that."

(With input from agencies)