British-Swiss Pharmaceutical Company AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 Drug Development Hits Setback
On Tuesday, British-Swiss bio-pharmaceutical company and Coronavirus vaccine-maker AstraZeneca announced that they have experienced a hold-up in their trials of Covid-19 treatment.
The multinational company has been come up with a treatment for the Coronavirus. They were in the process of making a drug that is created by combining two antibodies. AstraZeneca said in a statement that it was not successful at treating Covid-19 symptoms in the infected patients.
It was actually the third and the final phase of the trial to find a cure against the virus. They were testing if the drug was effective and safe to use.
According to the company, as a part of the trial, a number of 1,121 adults who have not been vaccinated were exposed to a Covid-19 positive person.
The statement further said that the treatment called AZD7442 reduced the risk of acquiring Covid-19 symptoms by only 33%. The numbers are not statistically enough, said the company.
AstraZeneca is still trying to determine if the drug can provide any kind of protection against the virus or treat more serious symptoms in humans.
The development of the drug AZD7442 was funded by the US. And they have made an agreement of getting 700,000 doses of the medicine after it is completed.
On the other hand, the Covid-19 vaccine made by the company with the association of the University of Oxford is still facing many safety doubts around the world.
Many European countries have suspended the vaccine after there were several reports of a rare blood clot in the body.
According to an official in the European Medicines Agency, there are talks about suspending the vaccine made by AstraZeneca completely for all age groups with available alternatives.
But a recent study from British health authorities revealed that in-patient treatment was not needed in almost 90% of patients with the Delta variant after getting fully vaccinated by AstraZeneca vaccine or Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.
Though the UK was supposed to lift Covid-19 restrictions earlier, the government announced that it would be delayed for four more weeks. It was caused by a surge of Delta variant infections that was first observed in India.
