AstraZeneca starts withdrawing COVID-19 vaccine as global demand drops

SINGAPORE: Global pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca has started withdrawing its Covid-19 vaccine, Vaxzevria, worldwide.

Sales growth began to slow for COVID-19 vaccines in 2023, even as other companies released newer vaccines meant to target new virus variants as the disease evolved.

“As multiple variant COVID-19 vaccines have since been developed, there is a surplus of available updated vaccines,” the Anglo-Swedish drugmaker said.

AstraZeneca is no longer manufacturing and supplying Vaxzevria, and in 2023, it began to move toward developing drugs to target obesity and vaccines for the respiratory syncytial virus.

In March, the company voluntarily withdrew the authorization to market medicines in the European Union, and on May 7, the European Medicines Agency announced that Vaxzevria would no longer be authorized for use.

“According to independent estimates, over 6.5 million lives were saved in the first year of use alone and over 3 billion doses were supplied globally.

Governments worldwide have recognised our efforts and are regarded as a critical component of ending the global pandemic.

We will now work with regulators and our partners to align on a clear path forward to conclude this chapter and significant contribution to the Covid-19 pandemic,” AstraZeneca said in a statement.

Vaxzevria was widely released worldwide in 2021 for individuals aged 18 and up as a series of two injections to the upper arm three months apart. Later, some countries used it as a booster jab as well.

Overall, it was considered to be safe and effective. However, individuals with the jabs had the rare risk of a side effect, thrombosis with thrombocytopenia, which occurred in around two to three people per 100,000.

In late April, the World Health Organisation advised people to be vaccinated against the latest coronavirus variant responsible for the pandemic, JN.1.

The Guardian quotes Prof Catherine Bennett, the chair of epidemiology at Deakin University in Australia, as saying that the AstraZeneca vaccine had been instrumental in the first line of defence during the pandemic.

“It has saved millions of lives and that should not be forgotten. It was a really important part of the initial global response.

However, it targeted the initial ancestral variants. We’ve now moved into a vaccine chain where we have products available that are chasing the variants that are emerging.

There’s also a shift in the risk calculus as well, given populations are much more protected and, even though of course Covid still causes deaths, we are overall less vulnerable to the disease.” /TISG

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