The British-Swedish pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca is said to have provided the world with a cheap vaccine in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. But after a series of mishaps, confidence in the quality that is expected to help end the pandemic is severely eroded.
On April 26, 2020, in a tweet on Twitter, Elisa Granato wrote: “No wonder waking up like an article about my death. I am doing the best I can”. Three days earlier, on the occasion of her 32-year-old birthday, photographs of the microbiologist Oxford had been released worldwide. The photos show a woman with a cheerful smile in the laboratory as she holds the syringe in her left arm. The small needle but a big step forward for humanity, it marks the first batch of the COVID-19 vaccine in humans in Europe. On April 23, 2020, the story of Elisa Granato and erroneous reports of her death raised a bizarre dispute over the most used vaccine in the world.
Developed by a small group of the most talented vaccine scientists on the planet and industrially produced by the leading pharmaceutical giant with many prestigious certifications, Vaxzevria (the official new name for the Oxford / AstraZeneca vaccine in Europe) has been making hot headlines for many months. But not the kind that manufacturers have high expectations for. Months later, the manufacturer was not only caught in the political conflict between the EU and the UK, but also by the increasingly complicated conflicts. As a result, many governments around the world have recovered parts of Vaxzevria (some countries call it Covishield). Even when the third wave of outbreaks broke out in Germany and the EU, followed by a number of people claiming they wanted to be injected with any vaccine except for AstraZeneca. What’s wrong with that? The following survey by reporters Der Spiegel has reorganized the stories surrounding AstraZeneca in recent weeks to envision the disaster facing not only the pharmaceutical company but also many other countries. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson (center) in an AstraZeneca vaccine factory. The Story of AstraZeneca The story of Vaxzevria begins at the Faculty of Medicine Nuffield, a research center on the eastern edge of the University of Oxford city. On January 30, 2020, a group of prominent researchers gathered there, just one day before the Brexit event and one day before the first two COVID-19 infections were announced in the UK, to be exact. is in York, 300 km away. For weeks, researchers continuously watched news about an outbreak of a virus in Wuhan (China), in a restless mood. As Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s governmental capacities are fully focused on leaving the EU, scientists at Oxford discuss how they can do to save the world. Among those present that day was Sarah Gilbert (a mediocre professor at the Jenner Institute) who was experimenting with yeast in a brewing research laboratory before becoming a world-renowned vaccine expert. Ms. Gilbert has researched on vaccines against malaria, Ebola and MERS, and is also preparing vaccines for “Disease X” – the next major pandemic that scientists are working on. . Ms. Gilbert (who has been studying the SARS-CoV-2 genetic code for weeks) has surprised colleagues by asserting that a vaccine will soon be available. At the time, Ms. Gilbert was working on phase 2 of Phase 1 clinical trials of a vaccine against MERS (Middle East Respiratory Syndrome) caused by a virus in the coronavirus family. By March 2020, Oxford experts have completed the first batch of new vaccines used to destroy SARS-CoV-2. The swine clinical trials in Surrey County have shown promising results. But obviously a huge amount of vaccine is needed, as much as possible. So Oxford started looking for partners in the pharmaceutical industry, and the first choice was pharmaceutical giant Merck (USA). But because Mr. Donald Trump’s “America First” thought made the British hesitant when working with Americans and the deal with Merck broke down. Speaking later on LBC radio, UK Health Minister Matt Hancock posted on the forum explaining that he did not want to enter into a contract that would allow the first batch of Oxford vaccine to be given to other countries. In April 2020, AstraZeneca’s Anglo-Swedish joint idea was born. Mr. Pascal Soriot, CEO of AstraZeneca. Pascal Soriot and AstraZeneca When Pascal Soriot took over AstraZeneca in 2012, the company was at a bottom: stock prices plummeted, and the risk of losing its drug patents. Soriot is deep into AstraZeneca: instead of reducing costs, he invested in product development, bought more companies, and resisted Pfizer’s American acquisitions. Today, AstraZeneca is the 2nd largest company in the UK. At the age of 61, Mr. Soriot soon learned to build himself. Raised up in the Paris suburbs and his father passed away when his son Soriot turned 20 years old. Soriot then enrolled in the Paris Business School (HEC) and entered the pharmaceutical industry. In 2020, AstraZeneca’s CEO Soriot announced that his company was planning to tackle a very difficult public health problem: producing vaccines against COVID-19. AstraZeneca initially announced a partnership with Sarah Gilbert and other Oxford scientists. AstraZeneca plans to export vaccines globally at prices ranging from $ 2 to $ 5, and aims that poor countries will have access to vaccines as quickly and equally as possible. At the same time, Soriot also assured Prime Minister Boris Johnson that would provide the first and exclusive large quantity of vaccine to the UK. However, the AstraZeneca staff said that Soriot was subjective in not considering the possible consequences of failure. Without hesitation, Soriot approaches the vaccine strategy as it does with all of its projects. AstraZeneca is committed to producing 300 million doses of the vaccine for the EU by mid-2021, as well as another 100 million doses for the UK. AstraZeneca is producing Vaxzevria in at least four plants in Europe; Two of them are Oxford Biomedica and Cobra Biologics (both located in the UK); The other two facilities are Thermo Fisher and Halix (located in Belgium and the Netherlands). The four factories are operated by subcontractors, not by AstraZeneca. And at least two of them have had problems right from the start. At first, Thermo Fisher produced fewer vaccines than expected. And Cobra Biologics does not work synchronously. The Dutch health expert, Wilbert Bannenberg, was not surprised by AstraZeneca’s vaccine production glitch when it came to the hundreds of ingredients used in vaccines like Vaxzevria, even with small deviations in the ingredients. The raw material also causes the finished product to be discarded. By the end of 2020, it was clear that AstraZeneca was having difficulty in the contracts it had to make. Soriot is wondering whether to leave the UK or leave the EU. And the owner of Downing Street began to form a specialized vaccine force consisting of famous experts and scientists. Led by biochemist and venture capitalist Kate Bingham, the force not only created multipurpose vaccines for the British, but also built the UK vaccine industry. In other words, the UK offered vaccine developers an offer they could hardly turn down. Gambling customers’ trust Vaxzevria is the third vaccine to be approved in Europe, after BioNTech / Pfizer and Moderna. But by the fall of 2020 it appears that AstraZeneca’s pandemic studies have become inaccurate. For example, about 3,000 test subjects received half an injection for their first phase, and a full dose for the second injection. Both Oxford and AstraZeneca disagreed in the notion that half the dose was an attempt to act. good idea. AstraZeneca has been criticized because it basically ended up calculating the mean of the data for different groups of test subjects. An even bigger problem is the lack of seniors to include in the study. The Standing Committee on Immunization (STIKO) of the Robert Koch Institute (Germany’s center for disease control) initially recommended AstraZeneca only test 18 to 64 years old, and invisibly turned the island. Inoculation in Germany is wrong. With a feeling of discomfort from a congestion in the vaccine supply, and not yet on any scientific basis, but French President Emmanuel Macron has declared the AstraZeneca vaccine “does not budge at all for people over 65” . Since that time, the vaccine has been ranked 2 in every European country except the UK. In the US, the AstraZeneca vaccine has not even been approved even though President Trump ordered 300 million doses required by the end of May 2020. At first it seemed that AstraZeneca was not completely transparent with Americans when covering the truth about A test subject fell ill at an early stage of the trial. But that is not the last malfunction. In March 2021, AstraZeneca announced that its vaccine was 79% effective in preventing symptomatic infections. But US officials believe that the pharmaceutical company’s data is out of date and may falsify the results. In March 2021, news began to circulate threatening to destroy confidence in AstraZeneca. In some countries, people vaccinated with the Vaxzevria vaccine have developed an embolism caused by a blood clot in the brain, also known as sinus venous thrombosis (CSVT). On 29 March 2021, the Paul Ehrlich Institute (German institution of health management) recorded 31 cases of CSV out of 2.7 million vaccinated people in Germany. Most affected young women. 9 people died. Fearful, some countries have now ended contact with AstraZeneca. Until recently, the European Medicines Agency (EUMA) admitted for the first time that there is a link between thrombosis and Vaxzevria, but EUMA still recommends the Vaxzevria vaccine for all age groups. According to a survey, 23% of French people consider Vaxzevria safe, in Germany it is 32%. Norway and Denmark stopped using the vaccine Vaxzevria. Thrombosis and death were also seen in Britain for the first time. Oxford University has suspended a vaccine trial in children. Experts are on the verge of despair. Ms. Nina Gatter (a vaccinator from North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany) criticized AstraZeneca when saying that the company did not properly display concerns from the skeptical psychology of public opinion. In Europe, there has been growing skepticism and has delayed the vaccination campaign. Many were vaccinated later than planned, while others used different vaccines. Consequences affect the chain elsewhere. The Covax initiative is currently heavily dependent on the AstraZeneca vaccine. The consequences of this lack of trust can be seen in South Africa. The government stopped vaccinating people after it discovered a mutation. The slow results of the COVID-19 vaccinations in South Africa, meaning substances created with the hope of saving the world, are now piled up in stock.
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