December 11, 2020
Photo credit, University of Oxford
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Australia to maintain Oxford / AstraZeneca vaccine orders but cancel another type
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A promising Australian coronavirus vaccine project was scrapped after trial participants returned false positive HIV results.
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Australia had previously agreed to purchase 51 million doses of the vaccine under development by Australian company CSL and the University of Queensland (UQ).
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The government said orders for other vaccines would now fill the shortfall.
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CSL and UQ pointed out that the positive results were false – meaning the health of trial participants was not at risk.
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The Australian government said it has now reached a deal for the Novavax vaccine and has increased its previous order of Oxford / AstraZeneca vaccines.
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The UK was the first to start rolling out a Pfizer vaccine this week.
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What happened to the UQ / CSL vaccine?
The vaccine was in the early stages of testing and was found to be effective in producing antibodies.
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But it also produced antibodies to HIV in some recipients, which means it gave false positive results for HIV. Other tests have shown that there is no presence of HIV.
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The CSL and UQ said it would take about a year to correct the flaw, which led to the decision to drop the trial.
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“It was likely it would work. But we knew we didn’t want to have any issues with trust, and this false positive test may have caused some confusion and a lack of trust,” said Brendan Murphy, secretary of the Australian Department of Health.
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Photo credit, BBC
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Paul Young, co-director of the vaccine project, described the move as “devastating” after spending 11 months “living and breathing this project.”
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“Although it is a difficult decision to make, the urgent need for a vaccine must be everyone’s priority,” he said.
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Other medical experts have also praised UQ’s “realistic” decision to ditch the vaccine, saying this is just the reality of vaccine development plans.
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“Typically around 90% of vaccines never make it to the market. As a global community, we have been blessed with the unprecedented speed and success in the development of Covid-19 vaccines,” said infectious disease expert Sanjaya Senanayake of the Australian National University.
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What does this mean for Australia?
Australia has all but eliminated community transmission of the virus, after experiencing peaks in transmission in recent months.
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Professor Murphy said the country is in a “wonderful situation” right now, but there will be “full population coverage” with two vaccines in 2021.
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“We don’t need emergency approval – we are in a good position because we have brought the spread of the virus under control,” he said on Friday.
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“I am therefore very confident for the success of the vaccination strategy that we will have next year”.
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The government said it was preparing for this kind of situation and therefore “spread the risk” by concluding multiple vaccine agreements.
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Prime Minister Scott Morrison said that by concentrating Australia’s efforts on other vaccines “we are more likely to get the whole population vaccinated sooner rather than later”.
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Photo credit, Getty Images
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The Oxford vaccine has been found to be “safe and effective,” the researchers said, but is awaiting approval from regulatory authorities around the world.
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The start of 2021 is still marked as the date when the first vaccines – most likely from Oxford / AstraZeneca – should be given to Australians.
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Australia has a population of 25 million people. She has recorded only one case of local transmission in the past week.
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The country has reported 908 deaths and 28,000 cases so far during the pandemic – far fewer than many other countries.
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She has been praised for her swift response to the pandemic, with border closures, lockdown measures and aggressive contact case tracing efforts. However, the deaths have been attributed to some failures.
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Victoria state has crushed the country’s worst outbreak after four months of total containment of state capital Melbourne
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