AstraZeneca withdraws Covid vaccine worldwide after admitting it can cause rare blood clots [View all]

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Source: UK Independent

1 hour ago


AstraZeneca is withdrawing its Covid-19 vaccine worldwide, months after the pharma giant admitted the drug could cause very rare, but life-threatening, injuries. The British-Swedish drugmaker has already withdrawn its EU marketing authorisation for the vaccine, branded Vaxzevria since 2021. The authorisation is the approval to market a drug in EU’s member states. The withdrawal was due to a “surplus of available updated vaccines” against new variants of the novel coronavirus, the company said.

The application to withdraw the vaccine from the EU was made on 5 March and came into effect on 7 May. “As multiple variant Covid-19 vaccines have since been developed there’s a surplus of available updated vaccines," AstraZeneca said, adding that this led to a fall in demand for Vaxzevria, which is no longer manufactured or supplied.

AstraZeneca recently admitted that its vaccine, initially called Covishield, could cause very rare side effects like blood clots and low blood platelet counts, The Telegraph reported. The admission came after the company was slapped with a class action lawsuit in the UK, which claimed that the vaccine had caused deaths and severe injuries and sought damages up to £100m for about 50 victims.

“It is admitted that the AZ vaccine can, in very rare cases, cause TTS. The causal mechanism is not known,” AstraZeneca said in court documents in February, the newspaper reported. TTS is thrombosis with thrombocytopenia syndrome, which is characterised by blood clots and low blood platelet counts in humans.

Read more: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/astrazeneca-covid-vaccine-withdraw-blood-clots-b2541291.html

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That was never approved in the U.S. (the similarly platformed one from Janssen (J&J) had been approved and was eventually withdrawn from the market). AZ did attempt to get an EUA in the U.S. in 2022 but eventually pulled the application.