By Elishya Perera
SYDNEY, Australia (CWBN)_ Clinical trials of the COVID-19 vaccines candidate developed by the University of Queensland in partnership with Australian biotech company CSL, have been abandoned after trail participants returned false positive test results for HIV.
While the Australian government had an agreement to secure 51 million doses of the vaccine, however, Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced today (Dec 11), that the agreement has been terminated. “University of Queensland vaccine will not be able to proceed based on the scientific advice, and that will no longer feature as part of Australia’s vaccine plan,” he said.
The Prime Minister noted that this decision should give Australians assurance that the government is proceeding carefully. “We are moving swiftly, but not with any undue haste here.”
While CSL said that it would not progress with trials, however, noted that prior to the trial, participants were informed that the vaccine could interfere with certain HIV diagnostic tests.
However, the global biotech leader assured that there was no possibility that the vaccine could cause infection, and routine follow-up tests confirmed this.
Therefore, CSL said that in order for the vaccine to release it would require significant changes to HIV testing procedures, which, according to UQ vaccine lead Paul Young, would take around another year.
Meanwhile, Head of the Health Department and former Chief Medical Officer Brendan Murphy said the vaccine was looking effective and promising, despite the false positive HIV test.
Human trials began in July with 120 volunteers, for the vaccine candidate which is developed by the University of Queensland and manufactured at CSL’s biologics facility in Victoria.
Following the government’s decision to terminate the agreement for the vaccine, Health Minister Greg Hunt said on Friday (Dec 11) that the government had always factored in that not every vaccine candidate would be successful.
“I think it’s important to understand that we planned in all of our contracts, for the potential either to discontinue … or to expand the number of vaccines,” Hunt said. “So, for example, we’re increasing our AstraZeneca purchase by 20 million units, that was envisaged within the contract.”
