Australia plans to shelve AstraZeneca Covid vaccine by October

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The federal government has announced it will shelve the controversial AstraZeneca vaccine by October, suggesting it will have enough supplies of other vaccines to meet “allocation horizons” for vaccinating the population by the end of the year.

The government released a revised planning document on Wednesday outlining how it intended to direct supplies over the rest of the year.

At the same time, the chief health officer, Prof Paul Kelly, said he was “worried” about the growing Bondi cluster and declared seven local government areas in Sydney would be recognised as national hotspots.

The vaccination document, titled National vaccination allocation horizons, suggests in July and August AstraZeneca will continue to dominate the vaccination program, with up to 2.6m doses being administered each week, predominantly to those over the age of 60, through state and territory clinics and the primary care network.

But as the vaccination of this age group nears completion, it is anticipated AstraZeneca will be used only “subject to request” from October.

The commonwealth last week announced changed health advice for the AztraZeneca shot restricting it to over-60s because it has been linked to an extremely rare blood clotting condition.

In the “Horizon 2” phase in September, supplies of the Moderna vaccine come on stream, with up to 125,000 doses per week to be made available to the primary care network, the document foreshadows.

By this stage, Pfizer supplies will also be ramping up, with up to 1.3m doses a week available, up from the 750,000 a week available in July and August.