Australia’s vaccine rollout behind schedule due to chronic shortage of doses

Australia is 3.4 million doses behind schedule in the COVID-19 jab rollout because of two major problems, experts have warned.

Australia is 3.4 million doses behind schedule in its COVID-19 immunisation rollout because of a chronic vaccine shortage.

Compounding the problem is a failure to administer the 2.4 million doses we actually do have.

The nation will on Thursday miss the original target of inoculating four million Australians by April with the latest data showing just 670,349 people were vaccinated by midnight on Tuesday.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison was expecting one million locally-produced doses a week from CSL. Just over 830,000 doses have been released. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Dean Martin

And experts are warning it will be almost impossible to meet Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s new target of “distributing” six million vaccines by May 10.

“It’s certainly looking like a significant challenge. It sounds very questionable because here we are at the end of March having vaccinated, what, 600,000 people,” Australian Medical Association president Dr Omar Khorshid told News Corp.

Australia was relying on 3.8 million doses of imported AstraZeneca vaccine but was only able to secure 714,000 doses before Europe banned exports of the product.

This left us short by three million doses.

Local production of the AstraZeneca vaccine at the CSL plant in Melbourne should help alleviate the shortfall, but the six million target relies on not a single hitch happening.

The government was expecting one million locally-produced doses a week from CSL. Just over 830,000 doses have been released.

Health Minister Greg Hunt confirmed on Wednesday half of those one million doses a week would be held in reserve in a stockpile for people who need a second dose.

Refrigeration of the AstraZeneca vaccine is also proving an issue. At least one courier company spoiled a delivery this week by not storing the shots in the required Ultra-Low Temperature freezers.

University of Sydney vaccine expert Professor Robert Booy said Australia should be purchasing more vaccines from other suppliers.

“I think there should be serious discussions behind the scenes to enhance our potential supply, either to hasten the availability of Novavax or consider other strong options like the one-dose Janssen product,” Prof Booy said.

Dr Khorshid said the government should be immediately purchasing supplies of the Moderna vaccine from the US.

News Corp reported on Wednesday another hitch in the rollout was the failure of state governments to get the vaccines they have been supplied into the arms of frontline healthcare workers.

Just half the vaccine doses delivered to the states had been injected by March 28.

The Federal Government is responsible for vaccinating 190,000 aged care workers and 318,000 aged care staff, but six weeks into the rollout just 99,000 aged care residents have received their shot.

A scandal that saw one of the main companies contracted to deliver vaccines in aged care stop their rollout for a period because a doctor who had not been trained in vaccine delivery overdosed a resident is only partly to blame.

The GP rollout is also well under what is needed to meet targets. Only 1600 GP practices can currently deliver the shots and many are complaining they have received only 50 vaccine doses a week.

Workers at CSL roll out onto a truck the first batch of the AstraZeneca vaccine in Melbourne. Picture: Getty Images

Dr Khorshid and Professor Booy said the state governments must help out by opening up mass vaccination clinics to boost delivery rates.

On Tuesday a record 72,826 vaccine were delivered but to reach the May 10 target of six million 133,000 doses a day need to be delivered.

The opposition described the rollout as “chaotic”.

“The Prime Minister is all announcement and no delivery. The chaotic vaccine rollout is severely behind schedule,” Opposition health spokesman Mark Butler said.

“The opening of our economy is dependent on people getting jabs in their arms. The longer the wait the more lockdowns we’ll see.”

Originally published as Australia’s vaccine rollout behind schedule due to chronic shortage of doses