Australia said on Wednesday that it would ask AstraZeneca and the European Union to release one million COVID-19 vaccine doses, to deal with the surge in cases in Papua New Guinea.

"We've contracted them. We've paid for them. And we want to see those vaccines come here so we can support our nearest neighbor, PNG, to deal with their urgent needs in our region," Prime Minister Scott Morrison told reporters in Canberra.

"They're our family, they're our friends. They're our neighbors. They're our partners ... This is in Australia's interests, and is in our region's interests," Morrison said. He said he wanted to divert doses that Australia had already ordered and paid for, to the islands north of Australia. Australia, which is also producing doses domestically, would make 8,000 doses available immediately to the country.

This call comes as Italy had recently blocked 250,000 vaccines being delivered to Australia citing vaccine shortages, which was dubbed by some as an example of "vaccine nationalism." Morrison himself voiced a degree of understanding at the time though. It was the first refusal of an export request since the EU established a mechanism to monitor vaccine flows in January.

Outbreak in PNG

Papua New Guinea has officially recorded just 2,000 cases since the pandemic began. However, experts believe the numbers to be much higher, due to low testing rates. Morrison said the virus needed to be controlled in order to stop a new variant from developing. 

Queensland health officials told news agency AFP that half the state's hospitalized patients had come from Papua New Guinea. A recent batch of 500 tests sent from PNG's capital Port Moresby showed a 50% infection rate among those tested.

The virus is largely under control in Australia, with fewer than 30,000 recognized cases to date in a country of 25 million people, despite a few community outbreaks and a slow rollout of the vaccination program. 

tg/msh (AFP, Reuters)