Fact Check: No, AstraZeneca Vaccine Does Not Mean 'Path to Death'

February 22, 2026 | 01:44 pm

TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - A post claiming that the name AstraZeneca means “path to death” circulated on X [archive], YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram on February 11, 2026. AstraZeneca is a multinational pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical company headquartered in Cambridge, England. In 2021, they launched a Covid-19 vaccine in collaboration with the University of Oxford, which became known as the Oxford–AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine (AZD1222).

The content shows a woman translating the name AstraZeneca from Latin to Indonesian using Google Translate. The translation results in “path to death”.

As of February 13, 2026, the content on X has been read by 531,400 users, liked by 4,000 netizens, and reposted 309 times. However, is it true that the meaning of the name AstraZeneca is “the path to death”?

FACT CHECK

Tempo verified this claim using an online translation tool and referring to various credible sources. Tempo's verification results show that a stra ze neca is not an original Latin phrase. Tempo retested the meaning of AstraZeneca using Google Translate by separating the words into a stra ze neca as in the video.

Google Translate does indeed produce the translation “path to death” in Indonesian. However, a search in Latin dictionaries such as Latin Dictionary and Latdict proves that the word a stra ze neca is unknown. The three dictionaries also do not recognize the phrases a stra or ze neca.

Quoted from the fact-checking organization Snopes, Latin language experts state that Google Translate's translation of “the road to death” is incorrect. Kristina Milnor, a professor of classical studies at Barnard College in the United States, says that the word ‘astra’ does indeed come from Latin. Its meaning is similar to the phrase “ad astra,” which means “to the stars.”

However, separating the letters “a” and ‘stra’ has no meaning in Latin. Similarly, the phrase “ze neca” or “zeneca” does not originate from Latin.

Mikael Papadimitriou, a researcher of Latin script at New York University, also said that “astra” is the plural form of the Latin word “astrum,” which means “star.”

Tempo again checked the meaning of “astra” and ‘astrum’ in a Latin dictionary. The Online Latin Dictionary shows that “astra” is the plural form of astrum.

A search for the word “astrum” in the Latin Dictionary shows that it is found in the 1982 edition of the Oxford Latin Dictionary, where one of its meanings is “star.”

Origin of the name AstraZeneca

AstraZeneca explains the origin of the company name in a thread on X. The company was founded in 1999 after the merger of Swedish pharmaceutical firm Astra AB and British company Zeneca Group plc. Astra AB says the word Astra comes from Greek and means star.

Meanwhile, a branding agency designed the name Zeneca at the company's special request. They required that the name must start with the first letter and end with the last letter of the alphabet, consist of a maximum of three syllables, and not be offensive in any language. From these criteria, the name AstraZeneca was born.

A similar narrative has emerged since 2021 when the Covid-19 pandemic hit. At that time, there were false claims that AstraZeneca came from Hindi, Polish, and Latin, meaning a weapon to kill.

Google Translate Accuracy Still Problematic

Google Translate developers now use large language models based on imitation intelligence trained with massive amounts of data. A number of studies have shown that the accuracy of these machines is highly dependent on the language pair and the type of text being translated.

A 2021 study by UCLA Medical Center found that Google Translate was able to preserve meaning in 82.5 percent of cases. However, the accuracy rate of this tool varies between 55 and 94 percent depending on the language pair selected by the user.

Language experts in the United States have highlighted the use of Google Translate and Bing by immigration authorities to analyze non-English content belonging to refugees. They argue that officials often misinterpret harmless comments or ignore threatening statements.

An article in The Conversation cites various studies showing the inaccuracy of Google Translate. The machine often fails to recognize expressions, place names, legal and technical terms, and subtle differences in language. This includes some translations between English and Spanish.

An annual evaluation of the machine translation system concluded that the technology still requires significant improvement. Research shows that translation errors in healthcare can be fatal. Google advises the public not to use machine translation results as a substitute for human translators.

CONCLUSION

Based on Tempo's research, the claim that the name AstraZeneca means "path to death" is false.

TEMPO FACT-CHECK TEAM

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