AstraZeneca begins withdrawing Covid-19 vaccine citing demand crunch
This came three months after the firm told a court that the vaccine could cause a rare side effect characterised by blood clotting and low platelets levels.
AstraZeneca has announced that it is withdrawing its vaccine against the coronavirus globally due to a “surplus of available updated vaccines”, reported The Telegraph on Tuesday.
The announcement came three months after the pharmaceutical company said in court documents that the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine could cause a rare but serious side effect.
The company admitted in court that the vaccine could lead to thrombosis with thrombocytopenia syndrome – also known by its acronym TTS – which is characterised by blood clotting and low levels of platelets.
The Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine is sold in India as Covishield and is produced at Pune’s Serum Institute of India. Covishield is the most widely used Covid-19 vaccine in India, and about 175 crore doses of it have been administered in the country, according to Business Standard.
The Serum Institute of India has not undertaken fresh manufacturing of Covishield for nearly two years, a spokesperson told Scroll. The company, however, has not announced any plans to discontinue the production.
In a statement to Scroll on Tuesday, a Serum Institute of India spokesperson said: “With India achieving high vaccination rates in 2021 and 2022, coupled with the emergence of new mutant variant strains, the demand for previous vaccines diminished significantly. Consequently, since December 2021, we have stopped the manufacturing and supply of...
