Health chief defends AstraZeneca vaccine as some question Australia’s COVID-19 vaccine strategy

Questions have been raised about Australia’s reliance on the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine in the fight against COVID-19, with calls for the Federal Government to secure more doses of higher efficacy jabs instead.

The criticism prompted the nation’s former chief medical officer, now head of the Department of Health, Professor Brendan Murphy, to defend the AstraZeneca vaccine, telling 7.30 he would be “very pleased to have it”.

Australian healthcare workers will start getting their COVID-19 vaccines this month, with authorities setting the ambitious target of having the entire country inoculated by October.

“I don’t think Australia has managed to secure enough vaccines to be comfortable, we really do need to diversify our vaccine portfolio,”…