AstraZeneca to withdraw Covid vaccine after over three million doses administered

After more than three billion doses, the Oxford-AstraZeneca Covid vaccine is being withdrawn.

AstraZeneca said it was “incredibly proud” of the vaccine, but it had made a commercial decision, BBC News reported.

The pharmaceutical company said the rise of new coronavirus variants meant demand had shifted to the newer updated vaccines.

According to BBC, Its vaccine was estimated to have saved millions of lives during the pandemic, but also caused rare, and sometimes, fatal blood clots.

In the race to lift the world out of pandemic lockdowns, the Covid vaccine was developed by scientists at the University of Oxford in record time. A process that normally takes 10 years was accelerated down to about 10 months.

In November 2020, it was heralded as “a vaccine for the world” as it was far cheaper and easier to store than other Covid vaccines. The pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca had agreed to manufacture it on mass.

Initially, it was the cornerstone of the UK’s plans to vaccinate our way out of lockdown.

“The truth is it made an enormous difference, it was what lifted us out of the catastrophe that was unfolding at the time, combined with the other vaccine from Pfizer,” said Prof Adam Finn, from the University of Bristol.