Researchers claimed today that AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 vaccine, developed in collaboration with Oxford University has been linked to an increased risk of vaccine-induced immune thrombocytopenia and thrombosis (VITT), a rare but fatal blood clotting disorder.
While not a novel disease, VITT appeared in 2021 as a result of the Adenovirus vector-based Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, commercialized as Covishield in India and Vaxzevria in Europe at the height of the Covid pandemic.
The cause of VITT was discovered to be an unusually dangerous blood autoantibody directed against a protein termed platelet factor 4 (or PF4).
In a separate study published in 2023, scientists from Canada, North America, Germany, and Italy described a nearly comparable disorder with the same PF4 antibody that was lethal in some instances following natural adenovirus (common cold) infection.
In a new study, Flinders University in Australia and other international experts discovered that the PF4 antibodies in both adenovirus infection-associated VITT and classic adenoviral vector VITT have identical molecular fingerprints or signatures.
Professor Tom Gordon stated, “Indeed, the pathways of lethal antibody production in these disorders must be virtually identical and have similar genetic risk factors”.
The scientist went on to say, “The findings have the important clinical implication that lessons learned from VITT are applicable to rare cases of blood clotting after adenovirus (a common cold) infections, as well as having implications for vaccine development”.
In 2022, the same team cracked the molecular code of the PF4 antibody and identified a genetic risk factor.
Their new findings, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, have significant implications for improving vaccine safety.
The study was conducted after AstraZeneca accepted, in a legal document submitted to the High Court in February, that its Covid vaccine can, in very rare cases, cause Thrombotic Thrombocytopenic Syndrome (TTS).
Also read: AstraZeneca Acknowledges Its ‘Covishield’ COVID-19 Vaccine Side Effects
TTS is a rare side effect that might result in blood clots and a low blood platelet count. It is believed to have killed at least 81 people in the UK as well as hundreds of significant injuries.
The business has also voluntarily withdrawn its COVID-19 vaccine’s marketing authorization from Europe and other global markets.
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