Australia to receive Novavax Covid-19 vaccine in Q3

Australia will receive Novavax's coronavirus vaccine in the third quarter, the head of the Department of Health has revealed.

Brendan Murphy, who was Australia's Chief Medical Officer (CMO) at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic but has since been promoted to secretary of the Department of Health, told a Senate inquiry into Australia's pandemic response that the government expects the Novavax jab to be available by the third quarter of 2021.

The Australian government has agreed to acquire 51 million doses of Novavax's vaccine, which has not yet been approved for use by the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA).

"We might see some by quarter three, which would be my recollection, it's September, but it could even be August," Murphy said on Tuesday night. "All (Novavax are) saying is that they're confident of giving us some."

As of April 22, there had been about 1.79 million vaccines administered in Australia.