Coronavirus vaccines: Australians warned against buying jabs off dark web

People are turning to the dark web to try and buy coronavirus vaccines, but health authorities say they need to be wary of scam artists.

Australians have been trying to use bitcoin to “magically” buy vaccines for themselves on the dark web – but federal authorities say most have been duped.

Therapeutic Goods Administration head John Skerritt on Tuesday confirmed the Department of Health was working with Border Force to monitor attempts to illegally import jabs.

Prof Skerritt said there had been a “handful” of Aussies caught in online scams.

“There’s been a small amount of activity on the dark web,” Prof Skerritt said.

Pfizer Covid-19 vaccines arriving at Monash Medical Centre, Melbourne.

“This is more individuals who feel if they pay a certain number of bitcoins they can magically have two doses of Pfizer turn up.

“It turns out that many of those cases, people simply gave their money, but nothing has turned up.”

Appearing before a Senate committee, Department of Health Secretary Brendan Murphy confirmed the government had updated modelling on when Australians might be vaccinated but could not share it.

“We are looking at a range of scenarios but there is no certainty in any of those outcomes,” Prof Murphy said.

TGA head John Skerritt.

Brendan Murphy receiving his AstraZeneca vaccine.

Australia had aimed to see 4 million people vaccinated by the end of March, but by Tuesday night just 1.7 million had been jabbed.

Prof Murphy said it was up to national cabinet when the updated timelines were made public, after initial goals were abandoned due to supply issues with the Pfizer vaccine and the AstraZeneca vaccine being linked to a rare blood clot disorder.

“The international supply of Pfizer, which is an even more important vaccine to our rollout now, is subject to ongoing reassessment with Pfizer,” Prof Murphy said.

“It’s going to be hard without a clear reliance on domestic supply to be absolutely certain about targets but we will share targets when we have them.”

Australia was expecting to receive 20 million more Pfizer doses towards the end of the year.

The Senate was also told only 6.5 per cent of the approximately 25,000 people living with disabilities in care facilities had received their vaccine, despite being in phase 1a of the rollout.

Just 192 had been given their second dose.

Health experts have advised against paying bitcoin in the hope vaccines “magically turn up”

Department of Health associate secretary Caroline Edwards insisted the cohort was still the “highest priority” while conceding it had been “a very minor part of our program to date”.

It comes after the University of Queensland released clinical trial data from the aborted COVID-19 vaccine trials that found the abandoned candidate could have been one of the best in the world.

The findings of the phase one safety study found there was an immune response generated in 99 per cent of patients it was tested on.

The trial was abandoned four months ago but the new data found 67 of the 68 people who received two doses of the molecular clamp drug showed a promising “neutralising immune response”.

More than 50 million doses of the homegrown drug were ordered by the federal government before trials were dumped in December after the technology was found to be producing false-positive readings to the AIDS virus.

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