The billion-dollar deal for the government to buy more than 50 million doses of the University of Queensland's potential vaccine was terminated suddenly after several participants in the trial returned false positive HIV test results.
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In other words, after being injected with the coronavirus vaccine, a test for HIV indicated wrongly they had HIV. They didn't have HIV but HIV tests said they did.
The unfortunate side-issue prompted the university and the Melbourne biotech company CSL with which it was working not to proceed to phase two trials.
CSL said: "There is no possibility the vaccine causes infection and routine follow-up tests confirmed there is no HIV virus present."
Why did this happen?
The University of Queensland and CSL were using a new method to make a vaccine - "molecular clamp" technology.
Each coronavirus is like a ball with spikes sticking out of it - the virus looks like one of those mines in cartoons.
In the case of the coronavirus, those spikes stick to healthy cells and take them over, making us ill with COVID-19.
The University of Queensland researchers engineered - created - a substance which clamped itself to the virus, and that process triggered the immune system's antibodies to attack and defeat the virus. The virus infects by merging with healthy cells but the "clamp" prevented that happening successfully.
The snag was that the engineered substance was partly derived from created HIV material.
This does not mean that people who were vaccinated would get HIV but it did mean that anyone tested for HIV might show a positive test even though they didn't have HIV.
So the vaccine failed?
It did not.
The University of Queensland said that its candidate vaccine was effective as a defence against the coronavirus. It said: "It has shown that it elicits a robust response towards the virus and has a strong safety profile.
"There were no serious adverse events or safety concerns reported in the 216 trial participants."
The problem was not with the effectiveness of the vaccine against coronavirus. It was that it sent false signals about HIV.
That mattered because it would have thrown methods for testing for HIV into disarray. There was no chance of health authorities all over the world changing the way they tested for HIV so the University of Queensland vaccine's side-effect was a commercial difficulty.
The UQ and CSL researchers tried to work around the problem with HIV specialists to see if HIV testing could be modified but the problem was insurmountable, certainly in time to get the vaccine up with the front-runners against the coronavirus.
It really shows how well science works. This should tell everybody that nobody is cutting corners. It speaks very highly of the quality of the science and the integrity of everyone involved in that vaccine.
- Professor David Tscharke
A University of Queensland statement said: "It is generally agreed that significant changes would need to be made to well-established HIV testing procedures in the healthcare setting to accommodate rollout of this vaccine.
"Therefore, CSL and the Australian Government have agreed vaccine development will not proceed to phase two-three trials."
The issue of trust
Apart from the difficulty with HIV testing, there was also the issue of trust.
In a world of false information and social media, any doubt about a vaccine runs the risk of spiralling into rejection.
Public trust right around the world will be paramount in getting a large enough proportion of the population vaccinated for the virus to be eliminated.
Any association with HIV - even a wrong-headed one - could have impeded the uptake not only of the Australian vaccine but of others as well.
Professor David Tscharke who heads the Immunology and Infectious Diseases Department at the Australian National University said that the pulling of the vaccine illustrated how well the system was working.
"It really shows how well science works," he said. "This should tell everybody that nobody is cutting corners.
"It speaks very highly of the quality of the science and the integrity of everyone involved in that vaccine."
He thinks the technology remains sound. It won't solve this pandemic, he felt, but might solve the next one.
Does this leave Australia short of vaccine?
The government is adamant that it doesn't.
Health minister Greg Hunt said: "It's important to understand that we planned, in all of our contracts, for the potential either to discontinue, based on the scientific advice and gateways, or to expand the number of vaccines."
The government has deals with four potential suppliers and it will now bump up the orders from others.
Production in Melbourne of the vaccine being developed by the University of Oxford and the pharma company AstraZeneca would increase. Orders for it would rise from 33.8 million doses to 53.8 million.
The Prime Minister also announced that Australia would bump up the Novavaxeen deal from 40 million to 51 million doses.
"So that's an extra 20 million doses of AstraZeneca, and an extra 11 million doses of Novavax. The AstraZeneca vaccines, of course, manufactured here in Melbourne by CSL," Scott Morrison said.
The head of the Health Department Brendan Murphy said that Australia would still be fully covered by two vaccines.
"We are in a good place in Australia with our vaccine strategy," he said.
Steve Evans
Steve Evans is a reporter on The Canberra Times. He's been a BBC correspondent in New York, London, Berlin and Seoul and the sole reporter/photographer/paper deliverer on The Glen Innes Examiner in country New South Wales. "All the jobs have been fascinating - and so it continues."
Steve Evans is a reporter on The Canberra Times. He's been a BBC correspondent in New York, London, Berlin and Seoul and the sole reporter/photographer/paper deliverer on The Glen Innes Examiner in country New South Wales. "All the jobs have been fascinating - and so it continues."
