Dr Brendan Murphy admits October date for AstraZeneca completion could be ‘unlikely’

A key voice on Australia’s coronavirus response has made a concerning admission about the rollout of the AstraZeneca vaccine.

Health Department secretary Brendan Murphy has cast doubt on whether the rollout of the AstraZeneca vaccine will be completed by the end of October as the government originally planned.

Speaking at a Senate Select Committee for COVID-19, Dr Murphy said because AstraZeneca required two shots of the vaccine it would be difficult to get it done by October.

About 50 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine will be manufactured in Australia by CSL. AstraZeneca, unlike the Pfizer immunisation, requires two does administered 12 weeks apart.

The first locally manufactured doses are expected to be available by the end of March.

“We don’t know whether we will be able to achieve two shots by the end of October,” Dr Murphy said on Thursday.

“With a 12-week interval it will be difficult. I suspect it’s unlikely we will have completed the second doses of AstraZeneca vaccine by then.”

Dr Murphy said all first doses would be delivered by October but conceded some people might not receive their second dose until mid-December.

“There may be some at the end of October that might have only had one (dose),” he said on Thursday.

“The great majority of people (will) have had two vaccines by then and everyone will have had one, and it’s a semantic difference where there are a small proportion who have to come back a little bit later for their second dose.”

The federal government has repeatedly claimed all adults who wanted it would be vaccinated by the end of October.

“If we get better access to vaccines and the rollout goes better, it may well be possible to get everyone two doses by then,” Dr Murphy said.

NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian receives the AstraZeneca vaccine at St George Hospital in Kogarah. Picture: Brook Mitchell/Getty Images

Dr Murphy’s admission comes two days after Prime Minister Scott Morrison said Australia’s COVID-19 vaccine rollout was on track, despite early mistakes and logistic problems.

New figures from the Health Department showed 86,000 people had received their first injection as of Sunday, less than half of 1 per cent of the adult population.

The government missed its target of 60,000 injections before the end of February. Mr Morrison previously said he hoped 4 million injections would be completed by the end of March.

However, Australian Medical Association vice-president Chris Moy was more positive.

Dr Moy said the fact only 100,000 vaccines had been given in the past few weeks should not be a deterrent, as the real vaccination effort would not “come online” until the end of March.

“The really big push on is going to happen when two things happen: when 4600 general practices come online over the next month or so and also when we start making one million a week,” he said.

“That’s really when we’ll get a better picture of where we’re going. In terms of the first numbers, we are behind, but we’ll get a better picture a bit later.”

Dr Moy said it was hard to tell yet whether Australia would reach its target of vaccinating all adults by the end of October.

“We’re at the beginning of things; not everybody is online yet,” he said. “As we get more people on board, we’ll have greater capacity to catch up.”