Parents and guardians of children aged 12 to 15 years can now make bookings for the adolescents in their care to get vaccinated against COVID-19.
The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines have both been approved by the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) and the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation for use in Australians aged 12 and over.
Millions of Moderna vaccines are due to arrive in Australia this week - and will be dispatched to community pharmacies across the country.
The doses will be subject to the same TGA batch release process as all other COVID-19 vaccines.
Australia has managed to secure an additional million doses of the Moderna vaccine from European Union member states on top of the 25 million doses we were already contracted to receive.
Everyone aged 12 to 59 will be able to receive doses of the Moderna vaccine from their community pharmacy, providing an opportunity for families to go along together to get vaccinated.
Over 1800 pharmacies will begin to receive doses of the Moderna vaccine next week, with another 1800 pharmacies to follow shortly thereafter.
Almost 23 million COVID-19 vaccine doses have now been administered nationwide - with more than 41 per cent of the eligible population now fully vaccinated.
Supplying and producing the vaccine
The ability to manufacture vaccines onshore has been essential to the progress of our rollout and CSL has now manufactured and supplied 16.8 million doses of vaccine for use in Australia.
Last week, 1.4 million doses of Pfizer and 1 million doses of AstraZeneca were released for distribution.
Over the coming days, the TGA will conduct sample testing of 1.3 million doses of Pfizer vaccine, along with 823,000 doses of AstraZeneca vaccine produced onshore by CSL, prior to releasing the vaccines for distribution.
Distributing the vaccine
With support from our Distribution Partners DHL and Linfox, more than 2.3 million vaccine doses were delivered across Australia to metropolitan, rural and remote locations, along with 2,489 deliveries of consumables.
- Ordering and Delivery. 99% of vaccine orders were completed last week with one order of Pfizer and three orders of AstraZeneca to be finalised today.
- Australia's assistance to the Pacific. This week another 500,000 doses were made available for distribution to the Pacific, with more than 3.1 million doses now provided to DFAT. This will help our friends across the Pacific, including Papua New Guinea, Timor-Leste, Fiji, Solomon Islands and Tuvalu.
Administering the vaccine
This week, 1,816,584 doses were administered across the country, taking the total number of doses administered 22.8 million. It took 43 days to reach our first million doses of vaccine administered and 5 days for the most recent.
- Total sites. This week we had a total of 5,374 general practices, 137 Commonwealth Vaccination Clinics, 3,092 Pharmacies and 166 Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Services delivering vaccines, along with 860 state and territory sites, taking the total number of vaccination sites across the country to 9,629. In the coming week, we will have approximately 40 additional general practices administering AstraZeneca.
- Aged Care. With our vaccine workforce service providers, we continue to focus on those most at risk in our residential aged care facilities, and have now completed first and second dose visits to all 2,569 facilities.
- Disability. We continue to ramp up our visits to disability residents with complex needs who require in-reach services. More than 19,850 people with a disability in a residential setting have now received at least one dose of vaccine.
