‘Vax rollout success in Oz reliant on public uptake’

Meanwhile, a health worker checks the temperature of a girl before giving her the Sinovac vaccine against COVID-19 during a drive at the Baiturrahman grand mosque in Banda Aceh on Wednesday. Pic/AFP

The head of Australia's Covid-19 Taskforce Lieutenant-General John Frewen has said the success of the vaccine rollout is now reliant on public uptake rather than supply as the country continues to battle the third wave of infections.

The early stages of the vaccination programme in Australia was plagued by under-supply problems. Frewen said that an imminent influx of mRNA Pfizer and Moderna vaccines would ramp up the rollout in September, reported Xinhua news agency.

"This takes us beyond the phase in the vaccine rollout where we were really mRNA supply constrained," he was cited by Australian Community Media as saying on Wednesday.

"The vaccines are coming, the distribution networks are in place and expanding. It all comes down now to public willingness to come forward," he said.

On Wednesday morning, Australia reported 1,721 new locally-acquired Covid-19 infections, 1,480 of which were from New South Wales, the country's most populous state with Sydney as the capital city, where the state health department also recorded nine deaths.

‘Africa's confirmed cases cross 7.92 mn'

The number of confirmed Covid-19 cases in Africa reached 7,926,999 as of Tuesday afternoon, the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) said. The Africa CDC, the specialised healthcare agency of the African Union, said the death toll from the pandemic across the continent stands at 200,045, the Xinhua news agency reported. Some 7,130,039 patients across the continent have recovered from the disease so far, it was noted.

4,82,116
No. of new cases reported globally in the past 24 hours

22,22,12,318
Total no. of cases worldwide

45,91,159
Total no. of deaths worldwide

Source: WHO/Johns Hopkins

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