Development of a Covid-19 vaccine in Australiawas abandoned Friday after clinical trials produced a false positive HIVresult among subjects involved in early-stage testing, reports AFP.
The result prompted the government to axe plans to purchase millions ofdoses of the candidate vaccine and instead increase orders of alternatives from AstraZeneca and Novax, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said.
“The University of Queensland vaccine will not be able to proceed based onthe scientific advice, and that will no longer feature as part of Australia’s vaccine plan,” Morrison said.
The candidate vaccine, which was still in phase one trials at theUniversity of Queensland, used a small amount of HIV protein as a “molecularclamp” but triggered an antibody response that could interfere with HIVscreening, Health Minister Greg Hunt said.
Although the vaccine had proved promising at suppressing Covid-19 and therewas no chance of HIV transmission, development was abandoned over fears itcould undermine public confidence in vaccinations, Department of HealthSecretary Brendan Murphy said.
“It probably would have worked very well as a vaccine, but we can’t haveany issues with confidence,” Murphy said.
Professor Paul Young from the University of Queensland insisted that theHIV protein used in the vaccine was “completely harmless” and posed no healthrisk to those who took part in trials.
The government said the announcement did not change the planned roll-out ofother vaccines to begin in March.
With Australia recording only a small number of infections daily, thegovernment said it could afford to take a relatively cautious approach to vaccines in comparison to countries with large outbreaks.
Australia has recorded 28,000 cases of Covid-19 in a population of 25million, with around 900 deaths.
