AstraZeneca halts COVID-19 vaccine trial after unexplained illness

(Karachi) In a latest move, AstraZeneca Plc has stopped giving shots of its experimental coronavirus vaccine after a person participating in one of the company’s studies got sick due to a potential adverse reaction, local media reported.

The development could delay and derail efforts to speed an immunization against Covid-19 for the world.

As per details, a person developed an unexplained illness that led the firm to pause its vaccine trials. According to AstraZeneca, researchers will examine safety data and will try to find the cause of developing such an illness while maintaining the integrity of the trials.

The vaccine, which AstraZeneca is developing with researchers from the University of Oxford, has been viewed as one of the leading candidates to reach the market. However, the recent initiative by the company will result in a big blow to AstraZeneca’s US-traded shares, while boosting the stocks of some rivals developing different potential Covid-19 shots.

The company maintained that this is a routine action which has to happen whenever there is a potentially unexplained illness in one of the trials. It said the firm is examining the specific diagnosis of the sick participants.

Earlier, AstraZeneca reported that it has obtained ‘good data so far’ on its Covid-19 vaccine candidate, which was licensed from the University of Oxford and is currently in large-scale clinical studies.

The potential vaccine entered its final trial in Brazil, with studies ongoing in the UK and South Africa. In the Phase I and Phase II trials conducted in the UK, the vaccine was tolerated and generated strong immune responses in all evaluated participants.

Study results also showed that a single dose of the vaccine led to a four-fold increase in antibodies to the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein in 95% of participants one month following vaccination.