Vaccine ready for rollout

THE AUSSIE VAX ACTION

AUSTRALIANS will receive their first COVID-19 vaccines in late February after the Pfizer jab was approved for use.

However the Prime Minister has warned it will not mean an immediate return to normal.

The approval came exactly a year after the first COVID-19 case was confirmed in Australia.

Australia’s medical regulator has approved Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine in record time — here’s what it will mean for you

AUSTRALIA is locked into one of its biggest ever peacetime logistics operations as frantic final preparations to roll out the approved COVID-19 vaccine that will hopefully unlock our country to the rest of the world.

The first shipment of least 80,000 doses of the Pfizer jab is due to arrive in late February, marking the start of a massive mission to inoculate the entire population, with recipients to be called up in batches of more than a dozen at a time.

Health Department Secretary Professor Brendan Murphy yesterday confirmed officials were working 24 hours a day to ensure hospital “hubs” were fully capable of starting the first phase of the vaccination rollout to priority groups.

“The preparation that is going on for this vaccination journey is huge,” he said.

“We have got major logistics issues vaccinating 26 million people.”

The Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) yesterday granted “provisional approval” to the groundbreaking mRNA vaccine produced by Pfizer and BioNTech for all Australians over the age of 16.

The initial rollout of the Pfizer vaccine to quarantine workers, health and aged care workers and nursing home residents would begin as soon as batch testing on the shipment was completed.

In NSW the hubs would initially be located in Sydney, Wollongong, Newcastle, Dubbo, Albury-Wodonga and on the far North Coast in hospitals where the vaccine can be easily stored at the required temperature of -70C.

They will be among the 30 to 50 hubs created around the country, with some “in-reach vaccination services” also established in residential aged care.

A health department spokesman told The Daily Telegraph work was underway with “logistics partners” DHL and Linfox, as well as state and territory governments, to finalise the delicate delivery of doses to various locations.

Due to the freezing storage temperature doctors administering the vaccine overseas have done so in batches of about 20 people to ensure vials are kept cold, a process it is understood Australia will follow.

Ongoing global supply chain problems combined with sky-high demand for the vaccine meant Australia’s initial hopes of having doses by mid-next month was pushed back slightly.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison confirmed the government had revised its goal of delivering four million doses by the end of March due to the supply issues, pushing the target instead into April.

However the overall goal of vaccinating all Australians by October remains.

Australia has secured 10 million doses of the Pfizer jab, with two required per person at 21 days apart.

Mr Morrison said the government was taking steps to ensure every Australian would be able to meet this schedule, unlike in cases overseas where the time between doses has been pushed further apart due to shortages.

“You don’t start what you can’t finish, and finishing the job involves two doses,” he said.

Australia has secured 3.8 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine from international producers and 50 million doses to be manufactured in Melbourne by pharmaceutical company CSL.

Health Minister Greg Hunt said pending approval from the TGA, the first shipments of the AstraZeneca vaccine from overseas were due to arrive at the start of March, but the shipments would be initally smaller due to supply problems.

The first batches of the vaccine produced domestically are due by the end of March at a volume of about one million doses per week.

In a statement the TGA said following a “thorough and independent review” of Pfizer’s submission it had decided the vaccine met the “high safety, efficacy and quality standards required for use in Australia”.

“The approval is subject to certain strict conditions,” the statement said.