Indo Pacific Centre for Health Security

Comprehensive COVID-19 vaccination coverage is the key to our region's health and economic recovery, and that's why the Australian Government is working closely with Indo-Pacific partner governments to support their national rollouts. As well as the health impacts of COVID-19, countries in our region have experienced significant economic shocks with the loss of trade, travel and tourism dollars, as well as other critical supply chain disruptions.

In addition to committing to share at least 20 million vaccine doses from Australia's own supply line with countries in the region by mid-2022, the Australian Government's $523 million regional Vaccine Access and Health Security Initiative is providing additional doses, delivery support and technical advice to assist our neighbours in accessing vaccines and safely administering them.

This year, we will deliver 2.5 million doses to Indonesia, as well as supplying medical equipment such as oxygen concentrators to support the Indonesian Government's response to the latest surge in infections. The Government will also send 1.5 million COVID-19 vaccine doses to Vietnam, along with procuring fridges to ensure the cold chain is maintained as the vaccines are transported to every community across the country.

In the Pacific and Timor-Leste, we have committed to ensuring comprehensive vaccine coverage. For example, Fiji has received more than 860,000 Australian-shared doses to date, with more to come. Our funding of hardware and the deployment of Australian-built information systems is assisting the Fijian Government with vaccine registration and tracking. One of the most useful outcomes of this partnership is a public vaccine tracking dashboard, which has supported a rapid and successful vaccination campaign that saw 97 per cent of eligible adults vaccinated in just 6 months.

Global cooperation is also an important part of our vaccine strategy. Australia is working with the United States, Japan and India to increase manufacturing capacity through the Quad Leaders Vaccine Partnership, and providing $130 million to support the COVAX Advance Market Commitment which ensures equitable access for the world's developing countries. By 1 September this year, COVAX had delivered more than 85 million vaccine doses to the Asia-Pacific region.

We are all in this together. Facing the challenges of the global pandemic requires multi-sectoral, multi-country collaboration. In the Marshall Islands, the Australian Embassy facilitated the transport of vaccines supplied by the United States by an Australian company, Indies Trader, to several hard-to-reach outer islands. This kind of practical, collaborative problem-solving in cooperation with our partner governments will see us all come through the critical phase of this pandemic more quickly than if we acted on our own.

You can follow Australia's vaccine access assistance at the Indo-Pacific Centre for Health Security's website.