AstraZeneca ends production of covid-19 vaccine

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On Tuesday (7), the Anglo-Swedish pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca announced that it had ended the production and distribution of the covid-19 vaccine, which it developed together with the University of Oxford, in the United Kingdom. The decision was motivated by a “surplus of updated vaccines available” on the market.

According to the news agency Reuters, the covid-19 vaccine can no longer be used in Europe, after a voluntary request to withdraw the vaccine came into force — the request was made on Sunday (5). Similar requests must still be made in other countries.

As AstraZeneca points out, the decision to discontinue the Covid-19 vaccine was commercial, based on demand. No problems involving any rare side effects or other issues were mentioned.

AstraZeneca’s positioning

“We are extremely proud of the role Vaxzevria [nome oficial da vacina na Europa] played a role in ending the global pandemic”, says AstraZeneca, in a statement sent to the newspaper The Telegraph.

According to independent estimates from the pharmaceutical company, “more than 6.5 million lives were saved in the first year of use alone [da vacina da covid-19] and more than three billion doses have been supplied worldwide”, adds the statement.

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“As, since then, multiple vaccines against [novas] variants of covid-19, there is a surplus of updated vaccines available. This has led to a decline in demand for Vaxzevria, which is no longer manufactured or supplied”, he points out.

“We will now work with regulators and our partners to align ourselves on a clear path to complete this chapter”, adds the company.

What about the vaccine in Brazil?

In the Brazilian case, vaccine technology was transferred from AstraZeneca to Fundação Oswaldo Cruz (Fiocruz), which can produce a national version of the vaccine.

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However, the Ministry of Health stated, in a note released at the beginning of this month, that “it has stopped acquiring and distributing viral vector vaccines [como a da AstraZeneca e da Janssen]giving preference to the acquisition of vaccines from other platforms, according to the availability of producers and recommendations from the Technical Advisory Chamber of Immunizations (CTAI)”.

Furthermore, the use of viral vector vaccines had already been limited to “groups with a better safety profile in December 2022, according to Technical Note No. 393/2022”, as Health points out.

Side effect of the covid vaccine

Although the legal dispute was not mentioned in AstraZeneca’s official statement, the pharmaceutical company is facing, in the United Kingdom, a class action filed by a group of patients who allege they had health complications after receiving the vaccine against Covid-19.

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The entire process is related to a rare side effect of the vaccine, known as thrombosis in combination with thrombocytopenia, which can be fatal. The risk of this rare side effect had been known since 2021 and was included in the product leaflet.

Source: Reuters and The Telegraph