Australia has received just 70% of the vaccine doses the government expected to have on hand by mid-April, according to a Guardian Australia analysis.
In a presentation published online on 14 March, the government included monthly forecasts for Australia’s expected vaccine supply, accounting for the disruptions to overseas supply that had already occurred leading up to that point.
Based on these forecasts, and figures cited by the health minister, Greg Hunt, for the number of doses received from domestic and international suppliers, there is a shortfall of about 1.5m vaccine doses.
The federal government has previously blamed international shipment delays for the slow rollout, which could take a couple of years to complete at the current pace.
However, comparing the government’s forecast with the number of doses we have actually received shows there has also been a shortfall in domestic production, with the number of locally-produced AstraZeneca vaccine doses lower than the government expected.
CSL, the company producing the AstraZeneca vaccine locally, put out a press release in February suggesting it would be able to produce 2m doses by the end of March.
On 24 March, CSL confirmed the release of 830,000 doses, and on 7 April, Hunt revealed CSL had produced at least 1.3 million doses by that point.
When asked why the 2m doses target had been missed, Hunt went into detail about the production and approval process, but did not directly answer the question.
Hunt did, however, indicate that CSL would be scaling up production, and called the production of 1.3m doses so far an “extraordinary achievement”.
It is not clear whether the March forecasts were too optimistic or if there are other issues involved.
According to people familiar with how vaccines are made, the process for creating such a vaccine involves a series of complex biological procedures and involves ongoing refinement, sometimes over several years, to reach peak levels of production.
Guardian Australia sent detailed questions about the vaccine supply shortfall to the health department, and a spokesperson said Pfizer shipments were expected to increase and CSL would produce more than 50m doses this year.
“Australia has entered into four separate agreements for the supply of Covid-19 vaccines, if they are proved to be safe and effective,” the spokesperson said in a statement.
“These include agreements with Pfizer, AstraZeneca, Novavax and the Covax facility. Combined, these agreements will ensure access to approximately 170 million doses.
“As shipments of Pfizer and AstraZeneca are made available, they will be dispatched across Australia to vaccinate the population. Deliveries from Pfizer are expected regularly and will increase over the coming months. CSL is producing 50 million AstraZeneca vaccine doses over the course of this year.”
A CSL spokesperson was positive about production, saying: “Production of the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine is progressing well at both CSL Behring and Seqirus, and the teams continue work around the clock to meet our commitment to the Australian community.
“The process for releasing vaccines involves extensive safety and quality checks and no batch is released until all parties – CSL, the TGA and AstraZeneca – are satisfied that each vaccine meets the required quality standards.
“CSL is proud of our unique role in manufacturing this vaccine for Australia.”
The government has also now made figures on vaccine utilisation by states and territories available, with the most recent update on 19 April.
South Australia had the lowest utilisation rates, having administered just 59% of the vaccine doses available.
Tasmania and the Australian Capital Territory both had very high rates, at 97% and 98% respectively.
Guardian Australia analysis had previously found that the smaller states were doing better in their rollout on a per-100 population basis. Tasmania, the Australian Capital Territory and the Northern Territory each have administered more than four doses per 100 population.
With more vaccines on the horizon, Dr Mark Hanly from the University of New South Wales says the groundwork has to be laid now for how to administer them out.
“[Federal] and state governments need to be planning now for how they will administer 1,000,000 doses a week,” he says. “We need to plan the logistics of how to administer vaccine at a rate that can match supply once local production is up and running. If suitable vaccination facilities aren’t in place, it is possible that the bottleneck will simply shift from supply to administration.”
South Australia is the latest to announce the creation of mass vaccination hubs to speed up the rollout, something Hanly was calling for in February, even before the rollout faltered.
“Mass vaccination sites and GPs have different advantages, so a rollout that draws on the benefits of both delivery modes is likely to help us get to high levels of coverage faster than drawing on either mode alone,” he says. “All of this, of course, is contingent on supply and people’s willingness to come forward to be vaccinated.”
Notes and methods:
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Australia’s expected vaccine supply was inferred from a chart in the 14 March vaccine rollout update, so the values are approximate. The figure for vaccines expected by 14 April assumes a linear increase between 31 March and 30 April
This content first appear on the guardian