SYDNEY (Reuters) – Australia on Monday approved the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine for use, but warned that AstraZeneca’s international production problems mean the country will have to distribute a locally made photo earlier than planned.
The country’s medical regulator was one of the first in the world to finalize a comprehensive approval of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said on Monday, noting that a year has passed since the first local coronavirus case was detected.
Vaccination of priority groups with the Pfizer vaccine is expected to begin in late February at 80,000 doses per week, Health Minister Greg Hunt told reporters.
Pfizer told the Australian government it anticipates continued supply, but will provide global production guidance “in mid-February for March and then weekly,” he said.
The update of the Australian launch comes after AstraZeneca Plc told EU officials on Friday that it would reduce vaccine deliveries to the bloc by 60% in the first quarter due to production problems.
Hunt said AstraZeneca advised Australia that the company “had a significant supply shock and that means we won’t have as much of the AstraZeneca International in March as they promised earlier”.
The AstraZeneca vaccine has not yet been approved by Australia, which is expected to begin supplying CSL with the AstraZeneca vaccine in March, earlier than planned, at 1 million doses per week, he said.
“The decision to pay a premium for a secure, sovereign vaccine production capacity through the CSL, which puts Australia in a much safer position than almost any other country in the world,” Hunt said.
Australia has set a target of 4 million doses of vaccine by April. It has also committed to providing vaccines to Pacific nations in a later schedule.
The Pfizer vaccine has been provisionally approved by the Property Therapy Administration (TGA) for Australians aged 16 and over.
Australia will administer the two doses of vaccine to each beneficiary at the recommended time.
Quarantine and border staff, front-line medical staff and care staff for the elderly and disabled and residents will be the first group to receive vaccines.
There have been no new cases of community transmission in Australia in the last seven days and there are no Australians with coronavirus in hospital intensive care units. Hunt contrasted this with six million cases globally in the last 10 days and 125,000 lives lost.
“This comparison is almost unbelievable, the difference between where we are in Australia and abroad,” he said.
To ensure that this remained the case, Australia abruptly suspended its New Zealand balloon for 72 hours on Monday and ordered all those who arrived on 14 January to isolate themselves and be tested after the New Zealand Zealand confirmed its first case of COVID-19 in the community in months.
“This will be done out of an abundance of caution, while finding out more about the event and the case,” Hunt told reporters later that day.
Australia has had just under 28,800 cases in the last year, the overwhelming majority in Victoria and 909 deaths.
Reporting by Kirsty Needham and Byron Kaye; Additional reporting by Sonali Paul in Melbourne; Editing by Diane Craft and Sam Holmes