AstraZeneca’s name seemingly has been ever-present in the news over the past few months. The vaccine that the Swedish-British company developed in conjunction with Oxford University remains the most controversial jab against Covid-19 to date.
However, thanks to the company’s decision to sell its vaccine at zero profit, its price is much lower than the competition, which is why AstraZeneca was the primary choice of so many countries. It is the leading vaccine in the EU and Australia, and has a substantial place in the global COVAX initiative which will supply vaccines to poor countries without individual contracts with pharmaceutical companies.
That is why the vaccine’s continuing safety issues are now posing a problem with the successful vaccination of most of the planet.
The latest negative development surrounding AstraZeneca is, of course, the link of its vaccine to a possible rare blood clotting issue that has already resulted in at least 20 deaths. The company’s initial response to the allegations was that it did not observe blood clots as a side effect during the clinical trials of the drug. In addition, the number of people that have developed blood clots after getting vaccinated is still smaller than the average occurrence of the condition within the general population.
The latter is most likely why the European Medicines Agency has established that the AstraZeneca vaccine is safe and should still be used widely as its benefits far outweigh the risks. The occurrence of blood clots remains quite low, especially compared to lethalities caused by severe coronavirus disease.
On two separate occasions (the second one being this week) the EMA stated the vaccine is safe and urged countries to continue using it. Nevertheless, many are wary and have now restricted its use to the younger population, as the risks of severe Covid-19 are higher in the over-55 population. Germany, France, the Netherlands, Canada, Australia, and more have decided not to give the AstraZeneca to people under 55.
While this might be for the sake of the safety of the younger population, it will present challenges for younger people who want to get vaccinated but have no alternatives available due to low supply from other companies.
Another issue is that clinical trials found the AstraZeneca vaccine is not very effective against the South African variant of the coronavirus. South Africa has paused the use of this vaccine in favor of others that are more effective against the dominant strain there. Other African countries might do the same.
The vaccine developed by AstraZeneca is still not approved in the United States. The company had another blunder there when it misrepresented the results of a clinical study in order to provide more favorable results, which were not accurate.
Thus, for various reasons public trust in AstraZeneca has eroded. Yet companies like Pfizer, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson have done very little to compensate for the short supply of vaccines globally. Supply was further pressured by India’s decision to limit exports in order to vaccinate its own population. India is currently going through its worst Covid-19 outbreak to date and the most serious one globally at the moment.
In other words, the pace of Covid-19 vaccinations outside of the United States is expected to slow down further, even considering it was too slow to begin with. Last year’s hopes that the availability of coronavirus vaccines will bring a speedy end to the pandemic have thus proven futile. For now at least, Covid-19 is here to stay and will continue to disturb the global economic outlook for many months to come.
