Pharmaceutical giant MNC, AstraZeneca, has withdrawn its poster boy vaccine from the markets. Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine, sold under the brand name Covishield and Vaxzevria, was found to cause rare side effects among its recipients.
As soon as the facts hit the news, people have been demonstrating all over the world against the Swedish-British giant to withdraw the medicine. At last, the company had the only option left.
It was among one of the first vaccines to be approved for mass vaccination and was widely used all over the world including India.
Covishield has been found to cause Thrombosis with Thrombocytopenia Syndrome (TTS), a type of rare blood clot, which was first diagnosed in a patient in the UK who suffered permanent brain injury following vaccination in 2021.
The reason behind the withdrawal, as per AstraZeneca, is not the side effect but the over supply of better vaccines.
Normally a vaccine or any new medicine undergoes several stages of preclinical and clinical trials before approval for the usage of the general public, which takes years to decades.
Due to the seriousness of the pandemic, the trials were of very short duration and not enough data were available on the long term complications of the vaccine. It was effective in reducing mortality due to COVID-19, which was the goal at the moment and the side effects were ignored somewhere in the shadows.
AstraZeneca has explained that the caution about TTS came with the vaccine way back in 2021. So, it seems to be a dual ignorance of the company and the medical authorities allowing it to be given to the general public.
