Leading pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca PLC. (AZN) has suspended its global COVID-19 vaccine trials which were including large stage trials. The company said it resulted to this move after a study participant in the experiment started suffering from unexplained illness.
“This is a routine action which has to happen whenever there is a potentially unexplained illness in one of the trials,” said AstraZeneca.
The illness is said to have been caused by a suspected serious adverse reaction. The biotech failed to disclose into details the nature of illness however the affected study participant is expected to recover.
According to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), an adverse reaction is one which evidence point to a possible correlation to the drug being tested.
AstraZeneca’s vaccine has been largely viewed as a leading candidate in the race to find a vaccine against the deadly virus. Even the World Health Organization (WHO) has been betting on the vaccine as the leading candidate and the most advanced one.
This suspension comes as a huge blow to United States which was counting on an early roll out of the vaccine, Trump’s administration has been pushing for a fast approval of the drug and expecting it to be rolled out before upcoming November presidential elections.
