AstraZeneca pulls COVID vaccine amid market glut and side effects concerns

AstraZeneca, which has delivered over 3 billion doses of the coronavirus vaccine to various countries, is withdrawing its products. According to company representatives, the reason is an "excess of available versions."

"As multiple, variant COVID-19 vaccines have since been developed there is a surplus of available updated vaccines" on the market—company representatives, quoted by Reuters, explain that the reason for the vaccine being withdrawn from the market is purely commercial. It's about the quantities produced in connection with the numerous mutations of the virus and then replaced with subsequent versions of the preparation.

"According to independent estimates, over 6.5 million lives were saved in the first year of use alone," states AstraZeneca, which sold over 3 billion vaccine doses to various countries worldwide.

The British newspaper "The Telegraph", which was the first to report on the issue, emphasizes that the concern applied for withdrawing the COVID-19 vaccine on March 5. The pharmaceutical giant did it "several months after" it first admitted in court documents that the vaccine can cause side effects, such as clotting or a decreased number of blood platelets. On Tuesday, May 7, the decision to withdraw the product from the market became effective.

A class-action lawsuit has been filed against the company. One of the reasons in the lawsuit is a father of two children, who suffered permanent brain damage as a result of thrombosis after receiving the vaccine in 2021. "The hospital called his wife three times and informed her that her husband would die" - writes the British newspaper.

Source: Reuters, "The Telegraph", "The Guardian"