The Telegraph said on Sunday that AstraZeneca had finally acknowledged in court records that the Covid vaccination can have uncommon adverse effects. This admission cleared the door for a multi-million pound settlement.

The pharmaceutical company is facing a class action lawsuit alleging that the Covid-19 vaccine it developed in collaboration with the University of Oxford resulted in fatalities and severe injuries, including thrombosis with thrombocytopenia syndrome (TTS), which lowers platelet counts and causes blood clots.

After the 2020 coronavirus epidemic, AstraZeneca and The University of Oxford worked together to produce the AZD1222 vaccine. Under permission from the university and the Swedish-British pharmaceutical, Serum Institute of India (SII) produced and supplied it under the name “Covishield” in India and other low- and middle-income nations.

The Telegraph reports that although AstraZeneca is disputing the allegations, the company acknowledged in a court filing filed in February that the Covid vaccination “may, in very rare cases, cause TTS.”

Attorneys have claimed that the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine is “defective” and that there has been a “vast overstatement” of its effectiveness. AstraZeneca has refuted these allegations emphatically.

According to the article, victims and their bereaved families have filed 51 lawsuits in the High Court, requesting damages estimated to be worth up to £100 million.

The first complaint was filed in 2023 by Jamie Scott, who after receiving the vaccination in April 2021 had a blood clot and a brain haemorrhage that left him permanently disabled. AstraZeneca responded to attorneys for Mr Scott in May 2023 with a letter stating, “We do not accept that TTS is caused by the vaccine at a generic level.”