On the basis of scientific advice, the Australian Government has secured an additional 20 million doses of the promising AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine, strengthening Australia\u2019s position for whole-of-population vaccination.
\nThis will mean a total delivery of 53.8 million Astra Zeneca vaccine doses in 2021, covering the whole of population requirements.
\nThe extra 20 million doses of the Astra Zeneca vaccine will be produced within Australia by CSL.
\nOur advice remains that Australia remains on track for first vaccinations in March, and completion of whole of population in 2021.
\nIn addition, a further 11 million doses of the Novavax vaccine will be purchased, bringing the total for this vaccine to 51 million. This provides an additional whole-of-population vaccine for Australia if proven safe and effective.
\nA purchasing agreement is also in place for the Pfizer\/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine, with 10 million doses scheduled for early 2021.
\nThe Australian Government is also part of the international COVAX Facility which allows the purchases of over 25 million doses of a range of other potential vaccines.
\nInvestment in the portfolio of vaccines is based on advice from the expert Science and Industry Technical Advisory Group (SITAG), which is continually monitoring and assessing each of the vaccines to ensure that Australia remains well prepared for the roll-out when the regulatory health and safety approvals have been granted.
\nAs a result of further medical advice to the Australian Government, the University of Queensland\u2019s research into a possible COVID-19 vaccine which has undergone phase one clinical trials will not be proceeding to phase three.
\nAs part of all clinical trials, assessments are made before expanding to the next phase of research.
\nThis decision is based on how the vaccine interacts with a testing system and has not been based on the safety or effectiveness of the vaccine candidate.
\nThe evidence from the University of Queensland\u2019s phase one clinical trials shows the vaccine to be safe \u2013 and that it produces a strong immune response able to neutralise the COVID-19 virus.
\nThis is something the University of Queensland researchers should be very proud of.
\nFurther work is required to address the discrepancies occurring in test results due to the construction of the vaccine.
\nAustralia\u2019s response to the COVID-19 pandemic remains the envy of the world \u2013 and we are making decisions, based on best medical advice, about vaccines, in our national interest.
\nWe have deliberately not put all of our eggs in the one vaccine basket.
\nOur Government has strong confidence a COVID-19 vaccine is likely to be available to Australians from as early as next March and that we can achieve our goal of providing a vaccine to all Australians who seek to be vaccinated before the end of 2021.
\nThe University of Queensland utilised a \u201cmolecular clamp\u201d vaccines design based on a highly promising technological platform, and has the potential be used to vaccinate against a number of potential viruses.
\nAs part of the vaccine\u2019s design, the university\u2019s researchers included a small fragment of a protein taken from the HIV virus, known as glycoprotein 41 (gp41). This has been used to create a \u201cmolecular clamp\u201d to hold the vaccine\u2019s synthetic virus in place.
\nAlthough the university\u2019s researchers have confirmed the protein fragment poses\u00a0absolutely no health risk<\/u>\u00a0to people who have taken the vaccine, they have identified a partial antibody response to it among trial participants.
\nThis has the potential to interfere with some HIV screening tests that look for these antibodies \u2013 leading to a false positive test result.
\nIt is this impact on HIV screening \u2013 and in the context of other promising vaccine candidates becoming available \u2013 that has led to the Government\u2019s decision. The decision was based on the unanimous advice of SITAG.
\nImportantly, pathology testing that directly looks for the HIV virus has\u00a0confirmed negative results<\/u>\u00a0for the trial participants who have taken the vaccine.
\nParticipants were informed the protein formed part of the vaccine before they consented to taking part in the trial \u2013 and HIV screening tests were carried out before and after vaccination.
\nParticipants will continue to be monitored to establish if the antibody response to the protein decreases over time.
\nThe Government will continue to support UQ is in its ongoing research due to this new platform providing such a promising breakthrough in vaccinations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
On the basis of scientific advice, the Australian Government has secured an additional 20 million doses of the promising AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine, strengthening Australia\u2019s position for whole-of-population vaccination. This will mean a total delivery of 53.8 million Astra Zeneca vaccine doses in 2021, covering the whole of population requirements. The extra 20 million doses of … Continue reading “Australia secures 20 million extra Astra Zeneca vaccines for onshore manufacturing”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9590","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aussie"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9590","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9590"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9590\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9590"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9590"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9590"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}