AstraZeneca has announced that it has begun recalling its COVID-19 vaccine globally due to a “surplus of available updated vaccines” following the pandemic.
This announcement was made by the Anglo-Swedish pharmaceutical company on May 7 and applies to the Vaxzevria (AZD1222) vaccine, developed in collaboration with the University of Oxford, which is commonly referred to by the public as the “AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine.”
AstraZeneca also stated that it will proceed with withdrawing the marketing authorization for this vaccine in Europe, according to Reuters.
AstraZeneca begins COVID-19 vaccine recall – (Photo: REUTERS).
According to the pharmaceutical company, this decision was made due to the current market having many updated COVID-19 vaccines based on new variants, leading to surplus and a decrease in demand for AstraZeneca’s vaccine.
According to the Telegraph, the first outlet to report this development, the company’s application to withdraw the vaccine was submitted on March 5 and took effect on May 7.
Previously, the company attracted attention by admitting in court documents that their COVID-19 vaccine could cause rare side effects such as thrombosis (blood clots) and thrombocytopenia.
However, detailed studies indicate that these effects are limited to a few days after vaccination.
A statistic from the Australian Department of Health based on domestic data shows that the risk of experiencing thrombosis and thrombocytopenia side effects typically lasts only 4-42 days after the first dose; the risk rate is 2 per 100,000 in people over 60 years old and 2-3 per 100,000 in those under 60.
AstraZeneca (headquartered in London, UK) began shifting to the production of respiratory syncytial virus vaccines and obesity treatments last year after experiencing slow growth due to declining sales of COVID-19 related products.
