French health minister gets AstraZeneca vaccine

French Health Minister Olivier Veran received the first injection of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine on Monday at a hospital near Paris, arguing it provided enough protection against almost all virus variants spreading in the country.

France received its first batch of AstraZeneca vaccines last week, 273,600 doses reserved for health professionals under 65 including Veran, who is a neurologist by trade.

Veran said "at least 99%" of the virus circulating in France do not correspond to the variant widely spread in South Africa, which makes the AstraZeneca vaccine effective in the country.

Veran's comments come after South Africa suspended plans to inoculate its front-line health care workers with the AstraZeneca vaccine as a small clinical trial suggested that it isn't effective in preventing mild to moderate illness from the variant dominant in the country.

Veran said new measures are being implemented to avoid further spreading of variants imported from other parts of the world, including the one that was first identified in the U.K.

The period of self-isolation for any person infected with one of the variants, or suspected to be, has been extended from 7 to 10 days, he said.

Measures also include quicker contact tracing efforts and instructions to close school classes as soon as one student has been infected with a variant.