Aug. 19 (UPI) -- Australia has signed a deal with the drug company AstraZeneca to provide COVID-19 vaccines to every citizen for free, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said Wednesday.
Under the deal, the Britain-based pharmaceutical will provide at least enough doses of its candidate vaccine, which it is producing with Oxford University, to every Australian if it proves successful, he said.
"The Oxford vaccine is one of the most advanced and promising in the world, and under this deal, we have secured early access for every Australian," Morrison said in a statement. "If the vaccine proves successful, we will manufacture and supply vaccines straight away under our own stream and make it free for 25 million Australians."
The candidate vaccine named AZD1222 is in Phase 2/3 trials in Britain, Brazil and South Africa to determine its efficacy and measure its safety and immune responses among various age groups and at various doses.
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Interim results of Phase 1/2 released by AstraZeneca in mid-July showed the candidate vaccine was "tolerated and generated robust immune responses" against COVID-19 in all participants.
"However, there is no guarantee that this, or any other vaccine, will be successful, which is why we are continuing our discussions with many parties around the world while backing our own researchers at the same time to find a vaccine," the prime minister said. "We are taking advice from Australia's best medical and scientific expertise to ensure that the government's work to select, produce and purchase COVID-19 vaccines and treatments is based on the best available knowledge."
AstraZeneca has inked numerous deals with nations in the past few months, including the United States, Brazil, China and most recently with the European Commission.
In mid-May, AstraZeneca and the U.S. government agreed to a $1 billion deal for hundreds of thousands of doses.
On Aug. 14, the company said it concluded an agreement with the European Commission to purchase between 300,000 and 400,000 doses if the vaccine proves viable.
There are several other vaccine candidates being developed with some also in the final stages of clinical trials, including vaccines by Moderna, Pfizer and some Chinese laboratories.
The deal comes as Australia battles an outbreak of COVID-19 in Victoria.
On Wednesday, the state's health department reported 216 new infections over Tuesday, continuing a drop in cases that spiked in early August.
