AstraZeneca Hopes New Data Gets Its Covid Vaccine Back on Track
The results of large-scale U.S. trials, expected soon, will either clear up or compound the confusion about the shot’s efficacy.
Vials of the Covid-19 vaccine developed by AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford move on a conveyor on the production line at the Serum Institute of India plant in Pune on Jan. 22.
Photographer: Dhiraj Singh/Bloomberg
Tens of millions of people around the world are desperately trying to get their hands on a potentially lifesaving coronavirus vaccine. But a group of irate private-sector doctors in Italy is appealing to the country’s health ministry to avoid having to take the Covid-19 shot it’s offered them: the AstraZeneca Plc inoculation, which they believe is less effective.
Their objection speaks to the growing backlash in Europe against the vaccine co-developed by Astra and the University of Oxford. Professionals working in Italy’s public-sector health system received vaccines from Pfizer Inc. and Moderna Inc.—both shown to be more than 90% effective—and the private-sector doctors are angry at being given what, in their view, is a second-class shot. “It’s not that we are acting like spoiled children,” says Paolo Mezzana, a plastic surgeon who’s the spokesperson for a group of about 3,500 private specialists. “We are not against AstraZeneca for the sake of it, but we know that with their vaccine it takes longer to get a complete immunization. We are not class B doctors.”