AstraZeneca withdraws Covid-19 vaccine citing 'surplus of available updated vaccines' on the market

Pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca has begun withdrawing its Covid-19 vaccine worldwide citing a “surplus of available updated vaccines”.

The British-Swedish drug company already made its application to withdraw its EU marketing authorisation for the shot, which has been known as Vaxzervia since 2021, on March 5. As of May 7, the company will not have approval to market a drug within the EU.

A statement from AstraZeneca said: “According to independent estimates, over 6.5 million lives were saved in the first year of use alone and over 3bn doses were supplied globally. Our efforts have been recognised by governments around the world and are widely regarded as being a critical component of ending the global pandemic. We will now work with regulators and our partners to align on a clear path forward to conclude this chapter and significant contribution to the Covid-19 pandemic.”

It comes after the company admitted that the Vaxzervia shot could cause extremely rare side effects including thrombosis with Thrombocytopenia Syndrome (TTS), a condition which is characterised by blood clots and low blood platelet counts. AstraZeneca was slapped with a £100m class action lawsuit in the UK that claimed the company had caused the deaths and severe injuries of a small number of people.

The company admitted to the rare side effects in court documents in February 2024, despite the insistence in 2023 that it would “not accept that TTS is caused by the vaccine at a generic level”. The document read: “It is admitted that the AZ vaccine can, in very rare cases, cause TTS. The causal mechanism is not known.” 

The World Health Organisation added: “A very rare adverse event called thrombosis with Thrombocytopenia Syndrome, involving unusual and severe blood clotting events associated with low platelet counts, has been reported after vaccination with this vaccine.” The AstraZeneca vaccine was developed in collaboration with Oxford University and was administered in more than 150 countries. Studies put the level of effectiveness of the AstraZeneca vaccine at around 60-80% protection against the novel coronavirus.