Australias’ COVID-19 vaccine produced false H.I.V positives in trial volunteers

Australia has canceled an order for 51 million doses of Covid-19 vaccines, roughly a $750 million plan due to the vaccine producing false positive test results for H.I.V in some of the volunteers participating in a trial study.

With dozens of coronavirus vaccines being tested worldwide, Australian vaccine  developed by University of Queensland and biotech company CSL has been the first to be abandoned. The reason for the false H.I.V positives is because the vaccine used two fragments of a protein found in H.I.V. The protein formed of molecular “clamp” that researchers put on the coronavirus spikes which allowed it to enter healthy cells. The clamp stabilized the spikes. Thus allowing the immune system to respond better to the vaccine.

The Australian researchers assure the public that the protein posed no risk of infecting the volunteers with the H.I.V virus. Due to the circumstances, the government decided to scrape the vaccine in order not to lose the trust from the public. Doing so is setting the country back 12 months in development.