Days after facing sharp criticism after admitting to some of the rare but severe life-threatening side-effects of its COVID-19 vaccine AstraZeneca has stopped supplies of its new batches of vaccines citing surplus production. This vaccine was made in India in partnership with Serum Institute of India and sold as Covishield. This has raised doubts, whether it has anything to do with the company’s admission in a legal battle.
AstraZeneca was in the limelight when it admitted in court that its COVID-19 vaccine could cause adverse side effects in rare cases like blood clotting and low platelet counts. While the vaccine manufacturer has been very resolute in saying that the side effects are very rare but when one delves a little deeper one gets a feeler that the issue is much more serious that what we are made to believe. This definitely cannot be brushed aside as a small issue and needs to be thoroughly investigated. Almost 400 million people in India have been administered the same vaccine and the issue cannot be allowed to be brushed under the carpet.
An international court must carry out a thorough investigation to this end and reach to the bottom of it. This is certainly not a small issue. Day in and day out we were seeing videos on various social media networks about how people working in a gym certainly died while being all fit and dandy or for that matter middle-aged men having a casual walk in the park witnessing a certain pang in their hearts and crashing down on the ground the next moment. Healthy individuals with no previously recorded history of ailments are dying every day and when one hears of such testimonies given by pharma companies like AstraZeneca we know where the needle of suspicion should point.
AstraZeneca must have been very specific about the side effects of this vaccine and made them public long back. Certainly, if the governments knew then the same must have been broadcast through various media channels in every country where this vaccine was to be administered.
Now that millions of people have been administered this vaccine the pharma company cannot just hide away from the facts. It has to be held accountable to every sudden death due to one of the causes it enlists as its rare side effects. First and foremost every government can ask for is compensation for every death that was caused due to one of these side effects.
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