It’s Official: The AstraZeneca COVID-19 Vaccine Has Been Approved in Australia

Jab 2.0.

Australia is right on the cusp of officially rolling out its coronavirus vaccine jabs, with the first doses of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine set to be administered from Monday, 22 February.

Now, the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA)—Australia's medical regulator—has announced that the AstraZeneca vaccine, developed by Oxford University, has been approved for use within Australia.

The Therapeutic Goods Administration announced that it has provisionally approved the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine for use in Australia. https://t.co/Se5yHXoL3S
— Twitter Moments Australia (@MomentsAU) January 24, 2021

The announcement comes just a month after the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine was approved in Australia. According to The Guardian, over 142,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine is on its way.

This vaccine is definitely good news for Australia’s vaccine rollout plan, because it was sort of relying on the AstraZeneca vaccine being approved, as millions of doses are already being manufactured in Melbourne.

So far, the approval for the vaccine is valid for just two years, and is subject to very strict efficacy and safety conditions.

"Australians can be confident that the TGA's review process of this vaccine was rigorous and of the highest standard," the TGA said in a statement.

However, it is not yet known if this vaccine prevents transmission or asymptomatic disease.

According to the TGA, the first supply of this vaccine will be imported from overseas and then the rest will be from Australian manufacturing. As of today, we have secured a hefty 53.8 million doses.

While that might seem like a lot, each person who chooses to get vaccinated will require two doses, so cut that number in half.

The vaccine is only approved for those over the age of 18, and the TGA has said that those over the age of 65 should take the vaccine based on a case-by-case basis.

This does not mean that anyone over the age of 65 should be concerned about health or safety risks from the vaccine. It just means that during testing there was not enough data to determine the efficacy of the jab in that age group. Essentially, there were insufficient numbers of participants over 65 who were infected with COVID-19.

Up to 1 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine could be handed out by the end of March. It's set to be the largest vaccine rollout in Australia's history.