Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced Monday that the Australian Medicines Agency has given the green light to the Covid-19 vaccine produced by Pfizer, which is supposed to give the first doses from the end of February .
This is the first vaccine against Covid-19 in Australia approved by the Therapeutic Goods Administration.
Morrison said, "This is not an emergency approval as we have seen in other countries. This is an official approval" under the standard mechanism adopted by the TGM.
Australia has requested 10 million doses from Pfizer, which will enable it to immunize five million people. Priority will be given to health workers and the elderly.
Morrison warned that vaccination will begin in late February, not mid-February, as his government initially promised, due to the logistical challenges of producing and delivering vaccines around the world.
He said the vaccination campaign should end in October.
This means that Australia will start vaccinating its residents months after countries such as the United States or Great Britain gave vaccines to their citizens, while Morrison had said at the beginning of the pandemic that his country would be "in the front of the waiting line" to start vaccination.
In general, Australia was able to prevent the widespread spread of the virus on its soil. The country, with a population of 25 million, has counted about 28,700 cases of the virus and 909 deaths.
