South Africa says it's suspending the rollout of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine while it goes through the results of a recent study which has thrown the vaccine's effectiveness into question.

Data from a recent study showed the vaccine only gave small amounts of protection against mild-to-moderate infection caused by the country's dominant coronavirus variant.

The country's dominant coronavirus variant is the so-called South African variant, which has been the centre of much attention over the past few months.

So considering Australia is relying on the AstraZeneca vaccine too - what could this mean for the vaccine more generally?

GUEST:

Dr Larisa Labzin, Institute for Molecular Bioscience, The University of Queensland