AstraZeneca withdraws COVID-19 vaccine, citing low demand DW 05/08/2024 – DW (English)

The pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca has reportedly withdrawn its COVID-19 vaccine Vaxzevria, also known as Covishield, worldwide,citing commercial reasons for the decision.

"As multiple, variant COVID-19 vaccines have since been developed, there is a surplus of available updated vaccines. This has led to a decline in demand for Vaxzevria, which is no longer being manufactured or supplied," various media outlets quoted the company was quoted as saying.

A document hosted by the EU's European Medicines Agency website confirmedthatVaxzevriawas no longer authorized in the region.

In an email to DW, virologistWolfgang Preiser said"the demand for SARS-CoV-2 vaccines is very low and unlikely to pick up significantly in the foreseeable future, so I understand the reasoning."

AstraZeneca, who developed the vaccine with Oxford University,said it was "incredibly proud of the role Vaxzevria played in ending the global pandemic."

More than three billion doses were supplied globally. Independent studies estimate that more than 6.5 million lives were saved in the first year that itwas used.

The Oxford-AstraZenecavaccine was developed within the first months of the pandemic in 2020. It was first approved in the UK on December 30, 2020, with other countries granting the vaccine conditional marketing authorization later in 2020 due to the urgency of the pandemic.

Vaxzevria was effective against initial ancestral variants of COVID-19 virus the alpha variant but was less effective against newer variants of COVID-19, such as the omicron variant.

Many governments, including in the UK, Germany and Australia, had stopped using the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine before its withdrawal from the market.

"We are still distributing COVID-19 vaccines, but none of them are AstraZeneca any more. They were the first manufacturer with which we concluded our arrangement in 2022,"Olly Cann, director of communications at the international organization Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, told DW.

Thelatest COVID-19 vaccine advice issuedby the World Health Organisation in April advised that COVID-19 vaccines should target the JN.1 lineage of the virus, which is now the most dominant variant.

However,at the time of writing,Preiser saidrelatively few severe infections were being observed"due to a high level of population immunity stemming from past vaccination,and often also past infection."

Although the vaccine was found to be safe and effective overall, it carried a very small risk of developingblood clotsas a side effect. The condition is known as "thrombosis with thrombocytopenia syndrome(TTS)."

The rare syndrome occurred in two to three people per 100,000 who were vaccinated with the Vaxzevria vaccine.

While studies found the vaccine did not increase the risk of heart attacks or strokes, it has been under intense scrutinydue to TTS.

"The side effects are real and may have serious consequences for those affected, but as with all interventions, a careful risk-benefit analysis [was]needed. During the pandemic, the balance was definitely in favor of using the vaccine," saidPreiser, who is based atStellenbosch University in South Africa.

In a UK High Court case, AstraZeneca isbeing sued by more than 50 people, who claim to have been affected by side effects.

The BritishTelegraph newspaper, quoted as the first to break the news of Vaxzevria's withdrawal from the market, reportedthat AstraZeneca had admitted in the court case in February 2024 that the vaccine "can, in very rare cases, cause TTS."

AstraZeneca said the decision to withdraw the vaccine was not linked to the court case or any risks associated withTTS.

Edited by: Zulfikar Abbany

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AstraZeneca withdraws COVID-19 vaccine, citing low demand DW 05/08/2024 - DW (English)