More than half a million Australians have now received a COVID-19 vaccination jab as part of the Government’s Phase 1 rollout – with around 80,000 aged care residents within the milestone figure.
In a statement, Federal Health Minister, Greg Hunt said there had been more than 507,000 vaccines at the close of business on Friday.
He said 329,000 vaccines had been administered in state and territory vaccination clinics, 97,000 in general practices and more than 80,000 aged care residents had been vaccinated.
“Our GP’s have played a vital role in this expansion and have not only been vaccinating over the week, but many practices are continuing to vaccinate on Saturday and Sunday this weekend,” said Mr Hunt.
“Over 1,100 general practices, GP-led respiratory clinics and Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Services are already providing vaccinations to people eligible in Phase 1b.
“This will grow to a broad national footprint of more than 4,000 general practices by the end of April. These will be complemented by more than 100 Commonwealth Vaccination Clinics and more than 100 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Community Controlled Health Services.”
He said the first of the 50 million Australian-made CSL doses of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine had already been distributed and would now be distributed on an ongoing basis.
“As part of our Vaccination Strategy, Australia placed an absolute priority on sovereign domestic vaccine production at CSL in August last year.”
“That decision has ensured that Australia is one of the few countries with strong, clear domestic supplies going forwards,” Mr Hunt said.
