Health Minister Greg Hunt says the COVID-19 vaccine is accelerating as local production come on board.

About 800,000 doses of the Melbourne manufactured AstraZeneca vaccine are being distributed.

It follows a rigorous testing program by Australia’s drug regulator, with phase 1b starting on Monday.

“It only started two days ago,” he said.

“What we have seen is we have had 30,000 people vaccinated on Monday, and 46,000 people vaccinated yesterday. I am delighted with that.”

Asked about the delays from manufacturers in Europe, he said the crisis in Papua New Guinea needed attention.

“We would obviously like to secure everything, but we trying to get 1 million doses made available for PNG.

“I think it would be deeply disappointing if a humanitarian emergency in a developing country was’t acknowledged but we will keep fighting.

“All up we have more than enough for 3 times of the Australian population so we are a in a very strong situation.”

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