Related Experiment Video For contamination
Updated: Oct 21, 2025

Expression and Purification of Virus-like Particles for Vaccination
Published on: June 2, 2016
False Coronavirus Disease 2019 Cases due to Contamination by Inactivated Virus Vaccine
Kelvin Kai-Wang To1,2, Xin Li1,2, David Christopher Lung3
1State Key Laboratory for Emerging Infectious Diseases, Carol Yu Centre for Infection, Department of Microbiology, Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine, University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, People's Republic of China.
Abstract:
A false-positive severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction result can lead to unnecessary public health measures. We report 2 individuals whose respiratory specimens were contaminated by an inactivated SARS-CoV-2 vaccine strain (CoronaVac), likely at vaccination premises. Incidentally, whole genome sequencing of CoronaVac showed adaptive deletions on the spike protein, which do not result in observable changes of antigenicity.
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