AstraZeneca Admits in Court of Rare Side Effect of its Covishield Vaccine

New Delhi: Pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca has acknowledged for the first time that its Covid vaccine “can, in very rare cases, cause TTS” (thrombosis with thrombocytopenia syndrome). This admission was made in a legal document submitted to the High Court in February.

The company stated in the document that TTS can occur even without vaccination and emphasized that expert testimony will be necessary to determine causation in each individual case.

AstraZeneca has been embroiled in a class-action lawsuit alleging that its Covid vaccine, developed in collaboration with the University of Oxford, has resulted in several deaths and serious injuries.

The Oxford-AstraZeneca Covid vaccine, sold as Covishield in India and Vaxzevria in Europe is a viral vector vaccine developed using the modified chimpanzee adenovirus ChAdOx1.

According to attorneys involved in the case, some households have experienced a “devastating effect” from the vaccination.

The legal battle began last year when Jamie Scott, a father of two, filed a complaint against the British-Swedish multinational pharmaceutical company. Scott claimed that he developed a “blood clot and a bleed on his brain,” leading to severe brain impairment, after receiving the AstraZeneca Covid vaccine in April 2021. AstraZeneca is vigorously contesting these claims in court.

In response to Scott’s lawyers in May 2023, AstraZeneca stated that “we do not accept that TTS is caused by the vaccine at a generic level.”

Thrombosis with thrombocytopenia syndrome (TTS) is an extremely rare condition characterized by blood clots and low platelet counts. It is also known as vaccine-induced immune thrombotic thrombocytopenia (VITT). The syndrome can lead to reduced blood flow due to blood clots in affected blood vessels, along with low platelet counts, which are essential for blood clotting.