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Coping with COVID: AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine study paused after one illness

Studies for the company’s COVID-19 vaccine candidate have been put on hold after reports that a participant contracted an illness believed to be a side effect of the shot, U.S. AstraZeneca shares dropping following news of the trial’s pause.

AP – Late-stage studies of AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine candidate are on temporary hold while the company investigates whether a recipient’s “potentially unexplained” illness is a side effect of the shot.

In a statement issued Tuesday evening, the company said its, “standard review process triggered a pause to vaccination to allow review of safety data.”

AstraZeneca did not reveal any information about the possible side effect except to call it, “a potentially unexplained illness.” The health news site STAT first reported the pause in testing, saying the possible side effect occurred in the United Kingdom.

An AstraZeneca spokesperson confirmed the pause in vaccinations covers studies in the U.S. and other countries. Late last month, AstraZeneca began recruiting 30,000 people in the U.S. for its largest study of the vaccine.

AstraZeneca’s U.S. shares fell more than 6 percent in after-hours trading following reports of the trial being paused.

The vaccine, developed by Oxford University, is also being tested in other regions of the world including Britain, Brazil and South Africa.

Two other vaccines are in final-stage tests in the U.S., one made by Moderna Inc. and the other by Pfizer and Germany’s BioNTech. Each vaccine works differently than AstraZeneca’s, and each study has already recruited about two-thirds of the needed volunteers.

The U.S. has invested billions of dollars in efforts to quickly develop multiple vaccines against COVID-19, though public fears that a vaccine is unsafe or ineffective could derail the effort to vaccinate millions in the U.S.