000 doses

Minister of Health, Silas Bule, was at the airport yesterday to welcome safe and effective vaccines from Australia’s Acting High Commissioner, Clemency Oliphant.

The 20,000 doses of AstraZeneca vaccine are manufactured in Australia and are approved by the World Health Organization.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, Australia has been supporting Vanuatu to respond to COVID19.

Vanuatu thanked Australia for its ongoing support to combat this crisis to ensure health security in Vanuatu and in the region.

The doses were the first batch of the vaccine that was ordered by the Government through the COVAX facility.

The vaccine arrived in April and the vaccination roll out began on 2 June.

The Government has ordered over 100,000 doses of AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine that will be arriving in batches due to a high global demand.

The Ministry of Health said it is committed to ensure all AstraZeneca vaccine doses are used before the expiry date of 31 August.