Moderna vaccine deal ‘key to booster strategy against Covid’
Health Minister Greg Hunt has announced the first of 25 million doses of the mRNA vaccine will begin arriving between July and September.
Australia’s has bolstered its vaccine strategy against coronavirus variants with a deal for 25 million Moderna shot doses, as the government turns to the private sector to begin onshore mRNA manufacturing.
Overnight, Moderna announced a supply agreement with the federal government for 25 million doses. The government has also confirmed it will open a tender process, within the next 10 days, for companies wanting to locally produce mRNA vaccines.
The vaccine deal with Moderna includes 10 million that will arrive on shore before the end of the year. Of the 25 million, 15 million doses will be Modern’s booster shot and arrive next year.
After the government changed its health advice to not inoculate under 50s with the AstraZeneca vaccine due to rare blood clotting, it secured an additional 20 million doses of the Pfizer jab to boost supply.
Health Minister Greg Hunt said the 10 million Moderna doses would serve as a backup for the nation’s rollout to vaccinate under 50s if there were delays with the contractual obligations of the Pfizer shot.
“This provides an additional backup if required during the course of the last part of 2021,” he said.
“The agreement with Moderna, which is focused primarily on our ability for 2022 to have a booster and variant strategy, but it reinforces our ability to meet our objectives this year.”
He said if Australia received all 40 million of its contracted Pfizer vaccine doses, all of the Moderna shots could be used to provide boosters to protect against variants.
“We’ve got flexibility over it as back-up, firstly for the under 50s and the potential if we have, which is likely to be the case, enough vaccines to cover all of Australians,” he said.
Mr Hunt said the government anticipated that one million of the Moderna doses would arrive in the third quarter and the remaining nine million in the last three months of the year. The government also has a contract with Novavax for 51 million doses, but regulatory delays have cast doubt over whether it will be delivered from September as initially expected.
He also said the government anticipated Australia would have at least domestic mRNA manufacturing operation, but refused to provide a timeline on when it could be established.
Science Minister Christian Porter will formally approach the private sector for proposals for domestic mRNA manufacturing within the next 10 days. Three companies – CSL, Moderna and BioCina – have already indicated an interest in producing mRNA vaccines on Australia’s shores.
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