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Trust in AstraZeneca Vaccine Fading, Adding to Shortages

Jamie Dettmer

   Confidence is fading fast in Britain's AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine
   in the wake of regulators identifying last week a link between the shot
   and a very rare blood disorder. Europeans are refusing the inoculation
   in rising numbers, prompting more of Europe's governments to consider
   buying Russia's Sputnik V vaccine.
   Italy, Spain, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Portugal and France
   have decided to restrict the vaccine to older adults, but they're
   encountering rising public resistance to the injection. An opinion poll
   in Germany suggests more than 40%of Germans would decline the
   AstraZeneca vaccine.
   People wait to receive a dose of AstraZeneca coronavirus disease
   (COVID-19) vaccine in Fasano, Italy, Apr. 13, 2020.

   The governor of the southern Italian region of Puglia, Michele
   Emiliano, told the La Repubblica newspaper last week that half of his
   residents are refusing the vaccination. "It will get worse, thanks to
   the confused way the European drug agency is communicating about the
   vaccine," he said.
   Skepticism about the vaccine also has spread to Africa. The African
   Union, which represents 55 countries, has abandoned plans to buy the
   Astra vaccine, which was developed by scientists at the University of
   Oxford, saying instead it will turn to Johnson & Johnson's single-shot
   inoculation.

   Johnson & Johnson vaccine

   But now there are concerns following the decision Tuesday by the U.S.
   Food and Drug Administration to recommend "pausing" the rollout of the
   Johnson & Johnson vaccine so it can investigate reports of rare cases
   of blood clots. Officials say they are looking into six reported cases
   "of a rare and severe type of blood clot" in women aged 18 to 48 who
   received doses.
   A total of 6.8 million doses of the single-shot Johnson & Johnson
   vaccine have been administered in the U.S. The company says "no clear
   causal link" has been found between their vaccine and the clots.
   Some African governments were already wary of the AstraZeneco
   immunization before the link to a blood clotting disorder was confirmed
   by European Union and British regulators, who have emphasized the
   potentially fatal side effect is "extremely rare," with only 84
   recorded cases out of 25 million vaccinations.
   Nonetheless, African governments were disturbed last month when a study
   published in the New England Journal of Medicine found the Astra
   vaccine, which has been renamed Vaxzevria for marketing purposes,
   didn't offer much protection against mild disease caused by a
   coronavirus variant that emerged in South Africa.
   The vaccine's efficacy rate was just 10 percent in preventing mild
   illness, according to the study, which didn't address the bigger
   question of whether it protected patients against severe illness and
   hospitalization.
   Asian reluctance
   Countries across the Asian Pacific are also becoming reluctant to
   administer the Astra vaccine, which has been plagued with supply
   problems, or they are heavily restricting its use.
   The Australian government has decided to restrict its use to those
   under the age of 50 and has had to abandon a pledge that everyone in
   the country would receive a first dose by October. Australian officials
   say they have doubled the country's order of the Pfizer vaccine.
   Australia's health minister, Brendan Murphy, called the policy change
   "highly precautionary."
   Officials in Hong Kong have decided to rely on other vaccines and to
   abandon previous orders. South Korea also is restricting its use of the
   Astra vaccine.
   Scientists and public health experts are largely frustrated by the
   burgeoning boycott of a vaccine, though its benefits outweigh the
   risks. They point out there is a minuscule chance of a fatal blood
   clot. And they warn that if countries reject the vaccine or people
   decline an Astra jab, it will have an enormous impact on the global
   rate of vaccinations, giving the virus even more time and opportunity
   to mutate and throw up strains that are resident to the current crop of
   vaccines.
   Because of the cheapness of the vaccine -- it is being sold at
   production cost price by AstraZeneca, a British-Swedish firm -- and the
   fact it can be stored at normal refrigeration temperatures, unlike the
   Pfizer and Moderna vaccines -- the Astra shot had been earmarked as the
   workhorse vaccine for the developing world and for price-conscious
   Europe.
   AstraZeneca accounted for more than 40 percent of coronavirus vaccine
   orders signed last year by lower- and middle-income countries. And
   according to Airfinity, a London-based research firm, Astra's shot
   accounted for almost a quarter of the total supply deals signed for
   2021, Bloomberg has reported.
   FILE - Boxes of AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine manufactured by the Serum
   Institute of India and provided through the global COVAX initiative
   arrive at the airport in Mogadishu, Somalia, March 15, 2021.

   COVAX, a global initiative set up to channel vaccine to poorer
   countries, had been using Astra as its mainstay vaccine. Last week the
   head of the World Health Organization (WHO), which backs COVAX,
   denounced the "shocking imbalance" in global vaccination rates. The
   WHO's director-general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said that one in
   four people in rich countries had received a vaccine, but one in 500
   people in poorer countries had received a dose.
   COVAX already had been buffeted by trouble stemming largely from
   India's recent decision to halt vaccines manufactured by its Serum
   Institute factory, which produces most of the AstraZeneca doses for the
   global initiative.