Covid-19 vaccination in Australia begins March 2021

The Covid-19 vaccine to be produced in Australia will be approved in a few weeks. The public may be on the right track to receive the first dose of the “antidote” that the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca are developing in March 2021.

The Australian Health Minister, Greg Hunt, said that his party had received a briefing from the Australian CEO who confirmed that AstraZeneca was seeking approval to continue the vaccination program to comply with regulations in the coming weeks.

“As agreed, this means Australians are very much ready to get their first vaccine in March,” he said, Monday (23/11) evening local time.

In early-stage trials, the effectiveness of the vaccine being developed by the University of Oxford with AstraZeneca is said to be an average of 70% and will be released by the end of 2020 with approval. This achievement is lower than the vaccines developed by other manufacturers, Pfizer / BioNTech and Moderna, because their efficacy is above 90%.

The director of the Oxford Vaccine Group, Professor Andrew Pollard, said the discovery marked “a very exciting day” and a big step towards the end of the Covid-19 pandemic.

“In the end, what we need to do to get back to normal and get the pandemic under control, is to get people around the world vaccinated. We need all the vaccines to be able to do that, “he explained

However, Pollard assesses, it is difficult to compare results between companies when it does not know exactly what is being measured.

Meanwhile, AstraZeneca’s Chief Executive, Pascal Soriot, claims the vaccine he is developing is “very effective against Covid-19 and will have a direct impact on public health emergencies.” (News.com.au)

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