AstraZeneca reaffirms Covid vaccine safety amid rare side effect concerns

In light of recent concerns surrounding potential rare side effects of the AstraZeneca-Oxford COVID-19 vaccine, the pharmaceutical giant has reiterated its commitment to patient safety while emphasising the vaccine's overall safety profile.

This comes in the wake of a recent admission by AstraZeneca, the pharmaceutical company, that its Covid vaccine Covishield and Vaxzevria "can, in very rare cases, cause Thrombosis Thrombocytopenia Syndrome (TTS)."

Despite these rare occurrences, the pharmaceutical company maintains that extensive clinical trial data and real-world evidence consistently support the vaccine's safety and efficacy. 

Regulatory agencies worldwide continue to assert that the benefits of vaccination outweigh the risks of such extremely rare side effects.

According to several UK media reports, AstraZeneca has made the admission in court documents in connection with a case that alleges that the vaccine, developed with the University of Oxford, caused death and serious injury in dozens of cases.

The Serum Institute of India produced COVID-19 vaccine named Covishield but not using mRNA platform. It has been prepared using the viral vector platform.

In the vaccine, a chimpanzee adenovirus - ChAdOx1 - has been modified to enable it to carry the COVID-19 spike protein into the cells of humans.

This cold virus is basically incapable of infecting the receiver, but can very well teach the immune system to prepare a mechanism against such viruses.