CANBERRA (XINHUA) – Australia has secured half a million Pfizer coronavirus vaccine doses from Singapore.
Under a “vaccine swap” deal announced by Prime Minister Scott Morrison yesterday, Australia will receive 500,000 doses that are due to expire, according to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC).
In return, 500,000 vaccines will be sent back to Singapore in December when Australia is expected to have ample supply.
Morrison said the doses from Singapore would arrive within days and be rolled out across the country next week in a major boost for the vaccination programme. “We need to vaccinate the whole country and we need for those doses to go from one end of the country to the other and for them to be taken up,” he told reporters.
“This will greatly assist the national vaccination programme as it brings in two important age groups into the programme, the 16 – to 29-year-olds, which have already begun this week. And, of course, the 12 – to 15-year-olds,” Morrison said. The announcement came as Australia is battling its third wave of COVID-19, with 1,253 new locally-required cases reported yesterday morning.
As of Monday, 58.7 per cent of Australians aged 16 and over had received their first COVID-19 vaccine dose and 35 per cent were fully inoculated.
