AstraZeneca: The 'saviour' of Covid pandemic, marred with misinformation

The year was 2021, and the date was January 4, when, in a terrified world being ravaged by Covid-19, filled with hysteria and panic, the first person outside of clinical trials was administered the first dose of AstraZeneca’s Covid vaccine. AstraZeneca was immediately hailed as the ultimate saviour of humanity. In that year, around 2.5 billion vaccines were administered, and an estimated 6.3 million lives were saved.

Then, fast forward to a post-pandemic world in 2024, where the horrors of the peak of Covid-19 are tragic and faint memories. There has taken place an ultimate fall from grace as AstraZeneca has now been transmogrified into a scoundrel sinner. This is after they admitted that their vaccine has some side effects in extremely rare cases, such as TTS (Thrombosys with Thrombocytophenia Syndrome), which causes blood clots and a low blood platelet count in humans. Astra Zeneca specified that this happens only in the most infrequent of cases. TTS is also caused by other vaccines for other diseases and is also a known side effect of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine for Covid-19.

A few days earlier, AstraZeneca withdrew its vaccine Vaxzevria from the global markets, explaining that as there are now multiple variants of the pandemic coronavirus, there is an outdated surplus of these vaccines. Immediately, there was a global pandemonium with accusations of conspiracy and other amoral and criminal allegations against AstraZeneca. Scientists have a different reaction.

Professor Adam Finn, Professor of Pediatric Studies, Bristol University said, “Global demand for all vaccines is now much lower and overall supply exceeds demand. This is in marked contrast to the early part of the pandemic, when supply was limited and distribution was extremely limited. The AstraZeneca vaccine, which expresses the original Wohan spike protein and has not been updated, is probably now much less effective than it was to begin with because the spike protein on the SARS-CoV2 variant now circulating has changed a good deal over time as the virus has evolved away from the immunity people have gained from vaccination and infection. Accordingly, there is probably no commercial case for continuing the manufacture and distribution of the vaccine, and I think this is likely the main reason the company has decided to discontinue making and selling it.”

Prof Jonathan Ball, deputy director of the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine and professor of molecular virology, says, “We seem to forget how desperate the global public was for an effective Covid-19 vaccine, and the AstraZeneca vaccine saved millions of lives. With almost everything we do, there is a harm-benefit assessment that we have to make, and at the peak of the pandemic, the AstraZeneca vaccine caused far more benefit than harm—that would still be the case, but now there are different, more effective vaccines available.”

There is no doubt that the AstraZeneca vaccine that was manufactured and distributed in India as Covishield by the Serum Institute, which was in partnership with AstraZeneca, was a key product at the peak of the pandemic. This includes the terrifying emergence of the Delta variant in India across the first half of 2021, where, amid significant global supply issues, this vaccine was among the few tools helping to alleviate an unprecedented humanitarian crisis.

This particular AstraZeneca vaccine, just like the others from Pfizer, Novax, and Moderna, went through the relevant stages of testing and trials at a time when very little was known about Covid-19. Phase 3 trials showed that the AstraZeneca vaccine was safe and effective. In India, during the peak period when the Delta variant was raging, the Serum Institute was the main producer of this vaccine at a time of extreme global shortages and very high Covid fatalities and burdens. During this period, it saved millions of lives in India alone across 2021 and 2022, when there were 4 million cases being reported globally every week.

As for the side effects of clotting, etc., it is also a well-established fact that Covid itself causes a seriously increased risk of blood clots and thrombocytopenia (low platelet count). In an August 2021 analysis of 30 million vaccinated patients in the UK, it was found that the risk of thrombocytopenic incidents was much higher following a Covid infection than when compared with any Covid related vaccine.

The British Heart Foundation describes how, for every ten million people who are vaccinated with AstraZeneca, there are just 66 extra cases of blood clots in the veins and seven extra cases of a rare type of blood clot in the brain. By comparison, a Covid infection causes 12,614 cases of blood clots in the veins and 20 cases of rare blood clots in the brain.

To give some perspective to these numbers, these vaccine associated blood clots are much lower than many popular and widely distributed common medical products. For example, common contraceptive pills prescribed to women have blood clot risks of around 1 in every 1000, while for women taking post-menopausal hormonal therapy, it is an astounding 1 in 300 every year!

The AstraZeneca vaccine has also suffered some serious misinformation and poor reporting over the years. In Germany in 2021, it was reported that it has only an “8 per cent efficacy rate in the elderly”, but it eventually turned out that the “8 per cent” figure indicated the percentage of people over 65 years old in the study and not the rate of efficacy.

The anti-vaccine lobby has had the chance to go to town with such misinformation and ‘infomedia’, including other falsified links between the vaccine and female infertility.

This is a grey area where government-led initiatives should provide more transparency, whereas misinformation from the anti-vaccination lobby hinders those very people they claim to cater to.

So why would AstraZeneca withdraw their star product? The logical answer seems to be that their vaccine is outdated, and modern, updated mRNA vaccines from other companies are performing better and are safer. For the AstraZeneca vaccine, the time may have passed, but there is absolutely no doubt in its star performance as a key tool for saving lives during one of the darkest phases in human history.

The author is a freelance journalist and features writer based out of Delhi. Her main areas of focus are politics, social issues, climate change and lifestyle-related topics. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.