Australia’s medical regulator gave provisional approval to Moderna’s coronavirus vaccine on Monday, paving the way for its use from September when a million doses are due to arrive.
Moderna is the fourth COVID-19 vaccine to be approved by the Therapeutic Goods Administration so far during the pandemic, and the second vaccine which has been approved using messenger RNA technology.
Three million doses will land each month in October, November and December, whereas Australia has ordered 25 million doses of Moderna with 15 million of these due to arrive in 2022.
“We will have 10 million of the Moderna doses arriving before the end of this year,” Prime Minister Scott Morrison said on Monday afternoon in Canberra.
“This is another important tool that we have in our battle against COVID. We’ll have it in our hands and we will have the jabs in our arms starting next month.”
People being vaccinated with Moderna, which has received regulatory approval in the UK, Canada, the EU, the US, Switzerland and Singapore. would need two doses, four weeks apart.
At the moment 13.7 million doses of the Pfizer and AstraZeneca have been administered across the country, with 9.1 million people having received at least one dose and almost 4.7 million are now fully immunised.
Health Minister Greg Hunt said that 1.3 million doses were administered across the country as the rollout continued to accelerate.
“On five days last week there were over 200,000 vaccinations,” he said. “That acceleration has actually happened. But these additional vaccines will allow it to continue further.”
