- Australia has signed an agreement with a fourth drugmaker, securing 25 million doses of Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine
- 10 million doses of the vaccinations will begin arriving in the country towards the end of 2021 before 15 million vaccines are delivered in 2022
- Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the first batch of doses could complement the 20 million Pfizer vaccines that are set aside to vaccinate Australian under 50
- The news of the fourth vaccination order comes as the PM walked away from a vaccine timeline set out in Tuesday’s federal budget
- The budget estimated the majority of Australian adults would be vaccinated by the end of the year, however, Scott Morrison said that timeline is not a promise
Australia has signed an agreement with a fourth drugmaker, securing an additional 25 million doses of Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine.
10 million doses of Moderna’s mRNA vaccine will begin arriving in the country towards the end of 2021, before 15 million top-up doses are delivered in 2022.
The biotechnology company announced the news on Wednesday night, revealing the agreement is subject to the Australian medicine watchdog’s approval.
“We appreciate the partnership and support from the government of Australia with this first supply agreement for doses of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine and our variant booster candidates,” Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel said.,
“As we seek to protect people around the world with our COVID-19 vaccine and potentially our variant booster candidates, we look forward to continuing discussions with Australia about establishing potential local manufacturing opportunities,” he added.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the first batch of Moderna’s vaccines could complement the 20 million Pfizer vaccines arriving in Australia at the end of October.
Those vaccines will be used to vaccinate the majority of Australian aged under 50, after the AstraZeneca vaccine was ruled out due to rare blood clot risks.
Meanwhile, the news of the fourth vaccination order comes as the Prime Minister walked away from a vaccine timeline set out in Tuesday’s federal budget.
The budget estimated the majority of Australian adults would be vaccinated by the end of the year, however, Scott Morrison said that timeline is an aspiration and not a promise.
“The vaccination program, as it’s set out in the Budget papers, just assumes that it’s likely that this will be in place by the end of the year. But that could happen with two doses, one dose,” he said in an interview with ABC.
“It could be many months either side of that and that will not have a material impact on what is in this Budget, and it would be a mistake to think that it did,” the PM added.