The arrival of the first doses of the AstraZeneca COVID vaccine

Australia has doubled its coronavirus vaccine stocks after hundreds of thousands of doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine were flown into Sydney on 28th Feb.

The federal government says it hopes the new vaccine will be going into people’s arms from Monday, March 8.

These are the first doses of the AstraZeneca jab to arrive in Australia.

They will now be batch-tested by scientists from the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) before a planned rollout on March 8.

Health Minister Greg Hunt said the shipment more than doubled the nation’s number of COVID-19 vaccine doses.

Hasn’t the vaccine rollout already begun?

Australians have been getting vaccinated for the last week. However, those vaccinations have been carried out using the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. That vaccine needs to be transported and stored in ultra-cold temperatures.

By contrast, the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine can be stored at fridge temperature making it easier to distribute. The rollout of the Pfizer vaccine started in February, with 20 million doses soon to be available.

Australia has secured 53.8 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine. 28th Feb’s shipment is the first of 3.8 million doses which will be delivered from overseas. Another 50 million doses will be manufactured in Australia in monthly batches by medical giant CSL.

Most Australians will get the AstraZeneca jab, which also needs two doses, administered 12 weeks apart.

What happens now?

The TGA will now check the vaccines have been stored at the right temperature and run batch tests to ensure they meet Australia’s strict quality standards.

More shipments will follow and then in late March, the first of the CSL Australian-made, Australian-produced AstraZeneca vaccines are expected to arrive on the basis of 1 million doses per week, with approximately 2 million expected before the end of March.