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An australian Vaccine for COVID-19 that had shown promising results in early trials is being dropped after researchers discovered that the injection caused false positive HIV test results.
On Friday (December 11), Australian officials said they had canceled an order for some 51 million doses of the vaccine, which was being developed by the University of Queensland and CSL Ltd., a local biotech company, according to The New York Times.
In an initial trial with 216 participants, the vaccine appeared to be safe and produce a robust immune response against COVID-19, according to a CSL statement. But some volunteers tested false positive HIV, which officials feared would undermine confidence in the vaccine, the Times reported.
“[The vaccine] it was likely to work. But we knew we didn’t want to have any issues with confidence, and this false positive test may have caused some confusion and lack of confidence. “Brendan Murphy, Secretary of the Australian Department of Health, told the BBC.
The vaccine contained small fragments of an HIV protein, which helped stabilize the vaccine. Some of the participants developed antibodies against these fragments, and these antibodies caused false positive results in some HIV tests.
It is important to note that there is no way for the vaccine to cause HIV infection, because it contains harmless fragments of the virus.
The trial participants were informed that they could generate some antibodies against this part of the vaccine, “but it was unexpected [of antibodies] induced would interfere with certain HIV tests, “the CSL statement said.
The Australian government plans to increase orders for other COVID-19 vaccines, including vaccines manufactured by AstraZeneca and Novavax, the Times reported.
Originally posted on Live Science.
