AstraZeneca removes its Covid-19 Vaccine From Sale

On its website Wednesday, the European Medicines Agency Covid announced that the approval for AstraZeneca’s Vaxzevria had been withdrawn “at the request of the marketing authorization holder.”

The vaccine, which was initially approved in January 2021, raised safety concerns about rare blood clots, prompting several countries to halt its use temporarily. Even though the EU regulator concluded that there was little overall risk, questions remained. Furthermore, the first limitations were brought about by a lack of data regarding its efficacy in older adults.

Billions of doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine were distributed to poorer countries via a United Nations-coordinated programme because it was less expensive and easier to produce and distribute. However, studies later revealed that the more expensive messenger RNA vaccines manufactured by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna provided better protection against COVID-19 and its many variants, prompting most countries to switch to those shots.

The United Kingdom’s national coronavirus immunisation programme in 2021 relied heavily on AstraZeneca’s vaccine, which was largely developed by Oxford University scientists with significant government funding.

However, even Britain eventually purchased the mRNA vaccines for its COVID booster vaccination programmes, and the AstraZeneca vaccine is now rarely used worldwide.