By Juliano Oliveira
Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has announced the initial jabs of the COVID-19 vaccine in the state as of Monday.
On Gold Coast, 100 frontline healthcare workers at the University Hospital will be the first to be immunised with the Pfizer vaccine. On Wednesday, it will be the turn of the workers at Princess Alexandra Hospital and then Cairns on Friday.
Chief Health Officer Jeannette Young said the plan is to vaccinate 27,000 frontline workers in Queensland over the next month, including healthcare workers, border and hotel quarantine staff.
Residents in aged care facilities and disability accommodations will start to receive the first doses next week.
Six hubs in the north and south Brisbane, the Gold Coast, Sunshine Coast, Townsville and Cairns will be administering the vaccine.
Vaccines
Yesterday, the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) approved the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine for use in Australia.
The doses will be imported from overseas when later the AstraZeneca vaccine will be manufactured in Australia.
According to the Federal Government, the AstraZeneca vaccine is provisionally approved in Australia for active immunisation to prevent coronavirus in individuals 18 years of age and older.
The TGA has reviewed all of the available evidence and determined that two doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine can be safely administered to an individual 4-12 weeks apart.
The first doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine arrived last week in Australia.
Over 142,000 doses landed at Sydney airport containing the first shipment of 20 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine.
Quarantine and border employees, and frontline healthcare workers will find approximately 50,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine available in the first week. Around 30,000 vaccines will be made available to aged care and disability care residents.