By Juliano Oliveira
Minister for Health and Aged Care, Greg Hunt, has unveiled that all visa holders in Australia will be granted free COVID-19 vaccinations.
Refugees, asylum seekers, temporary protection visa holders, and bridging visas are included. People currently residing in detention facilities will also be eligible, including those whose visas have been cancelled.
Mr Hunt has also announced an advertising campaign in 32 languages, a vaccine explainer in 29 languages; the campaign builds on 63 languages on the Department of Health’s website.
“In particular, we want to work with culturally and linguistically diverse communities. Accordingly, we will be allocating $1.3 million for additional funding to multicultural peak bodies to assist in information to culturally and linguistically diverse communities to support the vaccine rollout,” Mr Hunt said.
AstraZeneca Australia and Pfizer Australia, according to Mr Hunt, reconfirmed that the vaccine rollout remains on track, respectively for the last week of February for Pfizer and the first week of March for AstraZeneca.
“Subject to shipping in both cases. But both have reaffirmed their guidance only within the last two hours. So, I think that’s very important,” he said.
Minutes before, Prime Minister Scott Morrison had announced an additional 10 million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine. In total, Australia will now receive 20 million Pfizer doses in 2021.
“Securing the additional Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines is another positive step in protecting Australians from COVID-19,” the Prime Minister said.
“We now have access to over 150 million vaccine doses, ensuring we remain a world leader in the fight against the virus.”