Singapore, Australia to swap 500,000 doses of COVID-19 vaccine

By Riyaz ul Khaliq

ANKARA (AA) - Singapore is sending around 500,000 doses of Pfizer coronavirus vaccines to Australia, an official announced on Tuesday.

“They will be distributed next week to states and territories on an equal population basis,” Australian Premier Scott Morrison said on Twitter.

“Our government continues to leave no stone unturned to boost our vaccine program,” he added.

Australia will return the same number of vaccines to Singapore in December.

Singapore’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement that this dose-sharing arrangement “will enable both countries to support each other in optimizing our respective schedules for vaccinating our populations against COVID-19.”

“As Singapore has made good progress in our national vaccination program and possesses sufficient supplies to meet our immediate needs, we will provide around 500,000 doses of our existing stocks of Pfizer-BioNTech mRNA-based vaccine for COVID-19 to Australia,” the statement said, adding it helps Australia accelerate its vaccination program amid a current increase in cases caused by the Delta variant.

Australia has reported 53,856 coronavirus cases, including 1,006 deaths, and the government is boosting up its vaccination program.

“These returned doses would come in more useful for Singapore then, potentially as booster doses for specific segments of our population that could benefit from such boosting,” said the Singaporean Foreign Ministry.

With nearly 67,500 coronavirus cases and 55 deaths recorded so far, Singapore has vaccinated more than 80% of its over five million population.