Pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca has requested the withdrawal of European authorization for its Covid-19 vaccine, according to the European medicines regulator.
In an update published Wednesday on its website, the European Medicines Agency indicated that the approval of AstraZeneca 's Vaxzevria vaccine had been withdrawn "at the request of the marketing authorization holder" .
AstraZeneca's COVID-19 vaccine received EMA approval in January 2021. Dozens of countries suspended its use after unusual but rare blood clots were detected in a small number of vaccinated individuals. The European regulator concluded that the AstraZeneca vaccine did not increase the overall risk of clots, but doubts remain.
The partial results of its first large -scale trial, on which Britain relied to authorize the vaccine, were marred by a manufacturing error that researchers did not immediately acknowledge. Insufficient data regarding the vaccine's protection of older people led some countries to initially restrict its use to younger populations, before reversing their decision.
Billions of doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine were distributed to the poorest countries through a UN-coordinated program because it was cheaper and easier to produce and distribute. But studies later suggested that the more expensive mRNA vaccines made by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna offered better protection against Covid-19 and its many variants, and most countries switched to these vaccines.
In 2021, the UK's national coronavirus vaccination program relied heavily on the AstraZeneca vaccine, which was largely developed by scientists at Oxford University with significant government funding. However, even Britain subsequently purchased mRNA vaccines for its COVID booster vaccination programs, and the AstraZeneca vaccine is now rarely used globally.
