Prime Minister Scott Morrison says Pfizer’s focus on distributing vaccines to countries with thousands of deaths meant the Commonwealth had to resort to locally manufactured vaccines to keep millions of Australians safe from the virus.
Emails revealed under Freedom of Information showed Health Minister Greg Hunt delayed in taking up an offer from the pharmaceutical company for a briefing on the mRNA vaccines due to problems over a Confidential Disclosure Agreement.
“On the issue of our engagement with Pfizer, yes, those engagements had started before then, and those discussions were already underway, but it was very clear from those discussions that the focus was not on Australia, the focus was on where people were dying in their thousands, tens of thousands, in the Northern Hemisphere,” Mr Morrison said.
“It was very clear to us that what we would have to do is ensure that we had a home manufactured vaccine.
“And so, we were applying our efforts to ensure that we had the sovereign capability to produce vaccines here in Australia and not be reliant on what would be very uncertain supplies from overseas.
“That has been an important and significant part of our vaccination program. And that has kept thousands if not millions of Australians safe from the virus.”
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