AstraZeneca vaccine is approved in Australia

The AstraZeneca vaccine has been approved for use in Australia in adults over the age of 18.

The Therapeutic Goods Administration announced the approval shortly after 12pm on Tuesday.

Aussies will be given two doses of the jab made at Oxford University between four and 12 weeks apart.

The vaccine is very effective at reducing severe illness and death – but it is not yet clear if it will stop mild infection and transmission, which could be crucial to re-opening the country’s border.

‘The vaccine has met requirements for standards, for safety, quality, and efficacy, and will be provided free to Australians,’ Prime Minister Scott Morrison said.

Australia has ordered the vaccine from overseas and it will arrive in early March.

The government is also making one million doses per week at the CSL factory in Melbourne, with the first local batch due in late March.

The government aims to vaccinate four million people by April and everyone by October.

Health Minister Greg Hunt said the vaccine was safe and encouraged Australians to take it.

‘The team at the TGA that have worked extraordinary hours to tick every box, to assess everything, to make sure that safety, safety, safety, is the number one priority,’ he said.

On Monday 142,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine, which has also been approved, arrived in Australia on a Singapore Airlines flight.

They will be checked and transported around the country, with the first jabs hitting arms on Monday at 240 aged care facilities.

Pallets of the Pfizer vaccines – which are stored at -70C and were made in Belgium – arrived at Sydney Airport on a Singapore Airlines plane just after midday.

‘The eagle has landed,’ jubilant Health Minister Greg Hunt told reporters on Monday.

‘Today is an important day. It is the next step in a careful plan based on safety, and this is about protecting Australians.’

Mr Hunt said the vaccines will undergo ‘security and quality assurance, in particular to ensure that temperature maintenance has been preserved throughout the course of the flight, to ensure the integrity of the doses, and to ensure there has been no damage.’

Roughly 50,000 doses will be given to the states and territories who want to vaccinate quarantine workers as soon as possible and 30,000 will be used by the federal government for aged care residents and workers.

The remaining 62,000 vaccines will be kept aside to administer as second doses, 21 days after the first dose.

Mr Hunt said the decision to make the AstraZeneca vaccine in Australia was crucial given the global supply shortage.

‘I think the two most important decisions for Australia during the course of this pandemic were closure of the border with China and the decision to invest in onshore manufacturing by CSL of the AstraZeneca vaccine,’ he said.

Hospitals were told to prepare to start vaccinations next week after the Therapeutic Goods Administration conducts batch testing on some of the first vials.

Australia has secured 20 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine, which is enough to vaccinate 10 million people.

The vaccines must be kept at minus-70 degrees Celsius to preserve the mRNA responsible for inducing coronavirus immunity.

Logistics firm DHL will help with the transportation of the vaccines using dry-ice filled boxes.

Earlier on Tuesday Victoria’s Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton warned that hotel quarantine for returning Australians may still be required even with everyone vaccinated.

‘We don’t know yet. That’s a long, long way away. There’s not clarity or certainty around the transmission,’ he said.