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The federal government has signed contracts with distribution, logistics and monitoring companies to distribute Covid-19 vaccines across Australia starting in March, primarily to healthcare workers and senior citizens.
Courier DHL and supply chain and logistics Linfox will be responsible for distribution and will work with the Department of Health to design and operate a national distribution network. This will include ensuring that the vaccine reaches people in rural and remote areas.
They will also be asked to track and report the temperature of the vaccine at all times. The required temperature could be between 2 ° C and 8 ° C for most standard cold chain vaccines, and as low as -70 ° C, which is necessary for the Pfizer vaccine. The Pfizer vaccine will require specially designed dry ice containers during distribution.
The government’s Covid-19 vaccination policy document establishes that the deployment of the different vaccines, all with specific storage, transport, security and administration requirements, “will be complex and atypical.”
“Once the vaccine doses are delivered to a state or territorial vaccination site, states and territories will assume responsibility for the physical security and proper storage and handling of those doses,” the policy says.
The Pfizer vaccine is the candidate vaccine most likely to be implemented first, as it has already gone through stage three clinical trials. If approved by the drug regulator, the Therapeutic Products Administration (TGA), the government said 10 million units of the vaccine would be available starting in March. Results from the phase three clinical trial found that 95% of people who received the vaccine were protected against the virus.
The government has secured more than 117 million doses of different vaccines, all of which require two doses. They expect the first doses to be shipped to Australia in “early 2021”.
The audit and assurance company, PwC, will be the implementing partner of the Department of Health’s program for the launch of the vaccine, while the professional services company Accenture will design and implement the necessary software to track the vaccine in the different stages of the distribution chain.
On Wednesday, Federal Labor leader Anthony Albanese called for the vaccine to be distributed earlier, as the TGA and the independent advisory committee on vaccines anticipate that they will have reviewed the data provided by the pharmaceutical companies for January and, if they are satisfied with the safety and effectiveness. profile, it will approve.
But the distribution of the vaccine is also complex, and solving the logistics and storage problems means that the vaccine is unlikely to be available before March. The personnel who will administer the vaccine must also be trained, and safety systems will need to be established to allow continuous monitoring of the vaccine, including side effects. These are all aspects of the deployment that the government does not want to rush.
Hunt told ABC Thursday morning that the vaccine launch has “three important parts.”
“There is the evaluation, which is based on data from the vaccine companies,” he said.
“There is production, which is based on being on time. And then there is shipping and distribution. They are all on the right track. And we are ahead of schedule. But our whole focus has been to provide confidence by making fewer promises and delivering too much. ”
He said countries where the vaccine was already being implemented in specific and vulnerable populations had a very different situation than Australia.
“We will set the March expectation and obviously we are working not only to achieve that, but to put ourselves in an even stronger position, but there is no country that I know of that gives the approval of the general population and there are daily deaths of thousands of people. . cases in the US and UK. “
