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Singapore will send 500,000 Covid-19 vaccine doses to Australia, same amount to be returned in December

SINGAPORE — Singapore will send 500,000 doses of Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine to Australia as part of a "dose sharing" agreement, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) said on Tuesday (Aug 31).

Singapore and Australia will send each other 500,000 doses of Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine at different times, to enable both countries to support each other in optimising their respective schedules for vaccinating their populations.

Singapore and Australia will send each other 500,000 doses of Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine at different times, to enable both countries to support each other in optimising their respective schedules for vaccinating their populations.

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SINGAPORE — Singapore will send 500,000 doses of Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine to Australia as part of a "dose-sharing" agreement, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) said on Tuesday (Aug 31).

Under the deal, Australia will send the same quantity of vaccines back to Singapore in December, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said in a Facebook post.

The half-a-million doses that Singapore is sending will come from its existing stock and the country has enough to meet its current needs, MFA said. The returned doses later in the year would potentially be used as booster shots for "specific segments" of Singapore's population that could benefit from the shots, it added.

"This arrangement will enable both countries to support each other in optimising our respective schedules for vaccinating our populations against Covid-19.

"(It) will help Australia accelerate its vaccination programme amid its current increase in cases caused by the Delta variant."

MFA also said that Singapore is grateful to biopharmaceutical firms Pfizer and BioNTech for assisting to facilitate the dose-sharing arrangement.

In his Facebook post, Mr Lee lauded the move as another example of a comprehensive strategic partnership between both countries.

"Glad to support their efforts to get Australians vaccinated as soon as possible," he wrote.    

"Countries must be united in the battle to quell the pandemic, so that we can all move into the new normal. Singapore is ready to do our bit."

ABC News quoted Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison as saying that the doses would be received this week and rolled out across the country from next week, to be shared equally with all states and territories in Australia on the basis of population. 

"We need to vaccinate the whole country and we need for those doses to go from one end of the country to the other and for them to be taken up," he said.

The move would assist Australia's national vaccination programme with inoculating two age groups — those aged 16 to 29, and those aged 12 to 15, ABC News reported. CNA

For more news like this, visit cna.asia.

Related topics

Australia Covid-19 coronavirus vaccine vaccination Pfizer-BioNTech

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