AstraZeneca COVID vaccine: boon or bane?

Last month, AstraZeneca announced that they are withdrawing the vaccine from the market.  

The company said “as multiple, variant COVID-19 vaccines have since been developed there is a surplus of available updated vaccines. This has led to a decline in demand for our vaccine, which is no longer being manufactured or supplied.”  

The vaccine, heralded as “a vaccine for the world” in November 2020, has since delivered over three billion doses worldwide.   

While the vaccine is estimated to have saved many lives during the pandemic, the company did admit that the vaccine caused rare side effects of blood clotting and lowered platelet counts.

Scientifically termed Thrombosis with Thrombocytopenia Syndrome, the company had previously disclosed these side effects to health care regulators.

Developed by researchers at the University of Oxford, the vaccine is a double stranded DNA vaccine which targets the spike protein of the coronavirus.

While AstraZeneca is standing steadfast on their withdrawal, speculation continues to rise among the people across the world who received the vaccine.

The next steps of action on behalf of the company and medical authorities remain to be seen.

In hindsight, however, the fatality and effects from the blood clotting caused by this vaccine were negligible. The vaccine saved over six million lives by the end of 2021 and acted as a true ray of light amidst the shadow of the pandemic.