Can a scientist please help, is this why there is vaccine shortage?

[Thiscantreallybehappening]

Can someone with a science background please help me with this question please?

I heard on the ITV evening news last night that the reason for our vaccine shortage was due to a delay of a batch of 10 million doses coming from India.

India are manufacturing the AZ vaccine but it is called Covishield. One report I read says it is a version of the AZ vaccine. I then read this:

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, March 13

After nearly 10 countries suspended the use of Serum Institute made AstraZeneca-Oxford University vaccine over blood clots in recipients, India said no serious adverse events had been seen at home following the administration of Covishield but safety reviews are ongoing.

India has so far delivered 2,91,92,547 vaccine doses, majority of them Covishield, and seen 234 adverse events, including 71 deaths post vaccinations.

My questions are: Is this why there is an inconsistency in the numbers for blood clotting, have the EU been administering the Covishield vaccine and we have been administering the AZ?

Is this why some batches have been stopped but they are continuing with other batches?

Is this why the supply from India has been delayed?

Is it okay for the UK to use the Covishield vaccine as it is based on the AZ vaccine or should it be going through trials.

I read somewhere that scientists said there could be an inconsistency in the AZ vaccine because it it manufactured at multiple sites whereas other vaccines are manufactured at one or only a handful of sites.

Please note, I am definitely not anti vac, I have had my first jab and it was AZ. I am interested in knowing what is going on.

Anyone ???

I’m not a scientist but I’m pretty confident it’s the exact same vaccine; just a different name.

The blood clot issue isn’t connected to the vaccine as far as we know. There’s a briefing at 3pm today about it.

It might be happening to counteract the scaremongering blood clot reports.

I don't think anyone really knows yet, unfortunately. It will most likely all come out in time.

The BBC news website has an article on the reasons for the shortfall. It's to do with shortage of supplies of materials used in the manufacturing process.

It's not letting me link, but the headline is:

India coronavirus: Can its vaccine producers meet demand?

Ok a 2 second google tells you covishield and AZ are exactly the same, covishield is the trade name in India, ours is AZ

The reason for the delay now is production issues in India

India is a leading global pharmaceutical supplier and has a long successful history of making vaccines. There is nothing to be particularly concerned about in getting a vaccine made in India, if anything they have more experienced staff than many of the other facilities stepping up global production.

There have been a large number of other threads about the EU random panic over a few cases of thrombosis. The MHRA, EMA and WHO aren't concerned, so you shouldn't be. There are always thrombosis cases in the general population and the rates being seen are extremely low at under 3 per million, similar to Pfizer, with other causes such as previous covid infection not having been ruled out. The disease covid 19 on the other hand causes a lot of blood clotting issues. It isn't worth worrying about, it's just EU noise to distract from their dreadfully slow roll-out.

I worked for GSK so i hope you can be less anxious about what I say:
No drug can be delivered and administered here on the UK without extensive testing and approval from the FDA.

Batches of drugs (of any drug or even raw materials going into the drug) can be quarantined and held until analytical chemists deem the batches safe or unsafe if they think there are impurities. If they are unsafe they will be destroyed. With regards to side effects...what drug doesn't have a side effect? They all do but it doesn't mean it effects every single person. The same as food...some people get the shits from eating certain things or being sick but it doesn't mean we all do.

You actually said it in your post though that the AZ drug just has a different name in India...that's all it is!

And lots of raw materials for drugs come from India by the way.

India is have production issues and is prioritizing vaccinating its own population over exporting. The same as what the EU would like to do.

Yes, I know lots of drugs are manufactured in India and the Serum Institute are one of the biggest in the world but it does seem that the the suspended batches came from India.

Spain on March 16 joined the list of countries that have suspended the use of the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine, marketed in India under the brand Covishied, after reports of isolated cases of bleeding, blood clots and low platelet count in some of the nations.

I heard on the bbc it's the AZ vaccine.

Thank you very much MRex and Horehound

With the blood clotting issue, I thought it was due to a particular blood clot in the brain and also low blood platelets. I read that Germany had 7 cases and that was more than they would have statistically expected.

Your posts are reassuring and I had absolutely no hesitation in having the vaccine at all. I agree there are side effects with every vaccine but the benefits greatly outweigh the risks.

I'm just really interested to know what is going on

I'm not quite sure what you're asking here...

Covishield and the AZ vaccine are the exact same thing. Just as paracetamol, Panadol and Tylenol are the same drug under different brand names.

Production in any country can have issues for a vast variety of reasons. Scale-up issues, varying batches of reagents, lack of equipment can all cause delays. Remember the entire world is attempting to make a handful of vaccines so there will be delays in production and release of raw mats and equipment. Could be something as simple as not enough vials.

With regard to the blood clotting - this is unlinked to the vaccine. There are a few disgruntled European leaders with bees in their bonnet over Brexit. They have been humiliated by the success of the UK vaccine rollout compared to their own dismal efforts and are spitting their dummies. Nothing more sinister than than.

@dollophead

My questions were in my original OP. I'm just interested in what is going on with all the vaccines. I know that India are very experienced in producing vaccines, medicines etc.

You say AZ and Covishield are exactly the same but this says it is a version of the Astra Zeneca. I'm not a scientist, does this have exactly the same ingredients/make up of the astra zeneca?

Covid-19: India is at centre of global vaccine manufacturing, but opacity threatens public trust
BMJ 2021; 372 doi: doi.org/10.1136/bmj.n196 (Published 28 January 2021)
Cite this as: BMJ 2021;372:n196*

Of the two vaccines approved, Covishield is the better known. It’s a version of the Oxford University-AstraZeneca vaccine that was found to have an average efficacy of 70.4% in a peer reviewed study. Covishield is an Indian version made by the world’s largest vaccines manufacturer, the Serum Institute of India, and phase III trials on an Indian cohort have begun, with 1600 people enrolled in November.

ou say AZ and Covishield are exactly the same but this says it is a version of the Astra Zeneca. I'm not a scientist, does this have exactly the same ingredients/make up of the astra zeneca?

Yes it does.

Sorry, I posted too early. I was just interested as I have seen a couple of articles stating that the batches suspended in the EU were manufactured in India. Then we are due to have a batch from India that is now not coming. So I am wondering if the 2 things are connected.

However, MRex and Horehound have explained the situation and I am just reading too many articles and need to step away from all this and do some housework

Like I said, I was just interested in what was going on.

India has so far delivered 2,91,92,547 vaccine doses, majority of them Covishield, and seen 234 adverse events, including 71 deaths post vaccinations.

You're mixing apples and grapes.

in a population of nearly 3 million you're going to get deaths within any time window. Of those 71, NONE may be related to the vaccine - they are simply recorded because they happened in a window AFTER vaccination - even a road traffic accident victim would have been recorded here! So it's impossible to know from that data how many cases of serious blood clotting have been observed to compare against the data from the UK/EU.

@notrub

Thank you. The reason I was asking was that I have certain allergies and my consultant has said that some medicines have the same core ingredient but that the fillers are different and it is the fillers that can cause allergies. I was wondering if that could be the same with vaccines but I am assuming by what you say that it isn't the same and the vaccine is produced in exactly the same way.

My only question would then be why is it called Covishield and not Oxford/AstraZeneca?

Most of the people getting the jab so far are frail or quite elderly or have poor health. It would be miraculous if a fair number of them didn't happen to die in the week after being jabbed. Same cohort is at high risk for things like blood clots.

Thank you for your explanation notrub

@Horehound, you've got your regulatory agencies mixed up. The MHRA approve drugs in the UK - the FDA are the US equivalent

A family member has a yellow card report as less than 24 hours after getting his vaccination he was in ICU. But that was because he had an accident and sustained a life threatening injury. But because it was the next day the docs reported it. They do this so they can pick up any patterns - eg not responding as usual to a treatment or drug, not because they believe it was caused by the vaccination. . Always be sceptical when you see that something happened after the jab with no context.

[quote Thiscantreallybehappening]**@notrub

Thank you. The reason I was asking was that I have certain allergies and my consultant has said that some medicines have the same core ingredient but that the fillers are different and it is the fillers that can cause allergies. I was wondering if that could be the same with vaccines but I am assuming by what you say that it isn't the same and the vaccine is produced in exactly the same way.

My only question would then be why is it called Covishield and not Oxford/AstraZeneca?[/quote]
This is quite true for a lot of medicines.

Where a drug has gone generic i.e. the patent has expired and other companies step in - usually Asian based because they can produce the stuff far more cheaply, they can and do tinker with the fillers as they are not under any kind of contract.

However, they won't be doing it for this - they've been given the exact recipe to manufacture the vaccine exactly as the AZ factories do and contracted to do so. A vial of Covishield produced in India is exactly the same as one produced in Italy, or the UK.

As to your last question - why do we have Mars Bars in the UK, but Milky Ways in the USA? (exact same biscuit). It's purely marketing - I have to say "Covishield" rolls off the tongue a bit easier than "The Astra-Zeneca vaccine" does

@notrub

That is brilliant and very reassuring, thank you