Australian rollout from next week

First Pfizer vaccines arrive

CANBERRA: Australia’s Covid19 vaccine rollout will begin next week after the first doses of the Pfizer jab arrived in Sydney.

‘‘The eagle has landed,’’ Health Minister Greg Hunt told reporters in Canberra yesterday.

More than 142,000 doses had been taken to a secure location and batches would be assessed for damage and quality in the coming days.

Hunt said 80,000 doses of the shipment would be released in the first week, and the remainder kept aside for second doses.

States would receive 50,000 doses to begin the process of vaccinating hotel quarantine staff, frontline health workers, and agedcare workers and residents.

Hotel quarantine workers were considered the highest priority because they posed the greatest risk of spreading the virus to the community.

The Federal Government would have about 30,000 doses available for agedcare facilities.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison would receive the Pfizer vaccine early in the rollout in a bid to boost public confidence in the jab.

The Pfizer vaccine would be delivered through hospital ‘‘hubs’’ across Australia, and in residential agedcare and disability care facilities.

Logistics company DHL would help transport the doses across the country in portable freezers, as the vaccine needed to be stored at 70degC.

Hunt said the first vials of locally made doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine were also being manufactured. That vaccine is awaiting final regulatory approval from Australia’s Therapeutic Goods Administration.

Australian manufacturing of the University of Oxforddeveloped vaccine has been under way since late last year at biotechnology company CSL’s facility in Victoria.

Hunt said he would receive an AstraZeneca jab once available, imploring the public to have trust in the medical regulator’s assessment that the medicine is safe and effective.

‘‘It’s a free country and anybody can take a different view,’’ he said.

‘‘But that support for confidence will lead to uptake, will lead to protection and will lead to greater freedoms.’’

Australia has secured more than 150 million doses of various vaccines.