Oxford University and AstraZeneca jointly developed a new coronavirus vaccine controversy, despite the WHO and the European Union have endorsed the vaccine, but a YouGov poll shows that many European countries have a significant decline in trust in the AZ vaccine.
“The Washington Post pointed out that the AstraZeneca vaccine, which boasts no profit and only $4 per dose, plus the fact that it can be stored and placed at normal refrigerator temperatures for distribution in underdeveloped areas and that rich and poor countries can benefit from it, should have been the savior that saved the world from collapse, but it was accelerated by the introduction of other vaccines and its own mistakes. The AZ vaccine was released in November last year.
The AZ vaccine released its trial results in November last year, with 90% protection for subjects who received half of the dose, but only 62% protection for those who received the full two doses, which Oxford University researchers frankly could not explain.
Hildegund C.J. Ertl, a scientist at the Wistar Institute in Philadelphia, said, “From the beginning, the Oxford R&D team has been sending out news and bragging about how wonderful everything is. Boasting about things before it’s been thoroughly proven that they are indeed perfect only backfires. Now it’s a PR disaster.” Ertel worked on a vaccine with the same technology as the AZ vaccine and has also worked with Oxford scientists.
The U.S. itself has approved three vaccines, including a two-dose Pfizer/BNT vaccine with about 95 percent protection, a Moderna vaccine, and a single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine with 66 percent protection, and the AZ vaccine is pending approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). There is already a groundswell in the United States that the AZ vaccine is not needed.
Eric Topol, director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute, said, “I don’t see a role for the AZ vaccine in the United States.” He hopes the FDA will still approve the AZ vaccine so that the U.S. can donate all the AZ vaccine it buys to COVAX, the WHO’s global mechanism for obtaining vaccines.
AFP reports that opinion polls have found that a majority of people in Germany, France, Spain and Italy, the EU’s largest member states, now believe the AZ vaccine is unsafe to administer. Only British respondents strongly support this Home-grown vaccine, with 2/3 of respondents believing the AZ vaccine is safe and only 9% holding the opposite opinion.
In the poll, conducted between March 12 and 18, Public Opinion found that 55 percent of Germans said the AZ vaccine was unsafe, up 15 points in one month, while another 32 percent said the vaccine was safe.
In France, where vaccination is lagging behind other EU countries, 61 percent of respondents said the AZ vaccine was unsafe, while in Italy and Spain, the number of people who did not trust the vaccine increased by 27 percentage points in one month.
The European Medicines Agency (EMA) published its assessment on the 18th, concluding that the AZ vaccine is “safe and effective,” but it could not completely rule out an association between the vaccine and a few rare blood clots. The World health Organization (WHO) and the UK health regulator also said that the AZ vaccine is safe, and although Germany and France have decided to resume administering it, it is still difficult for all European countries to clear their doubts.
The poll interviewed a total of about 8,000 adults in seven European countries. “The reputation of the vaccine in Europe has undoubtedly been damaged after European leaders expressed concerns about the protection and efficacy of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine,” said Matt Smith, a journalist responsible for data data at Public Opinion.
“With a 3rd wave of the outbreak likely to sweep across Europe, officials on all sides fear that if the controversy over the AZ vaccine continues, it could eventually drag down comprehensive vaccination programs.”
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