Prime Minister Scott Morrison insisted the blocked shipment of the AstraZeneca jabs was understandable and would not affect Australia's vaccine programme.
He expressed sympathy for Europe's plight against Covid-19 on social media.
"In Italy, people are dying at the rate of 300 a day. And so I can certainly understand the high level of anxiety that would exist in Italy and in many countries across Europe.
"They are in an unbridled crisis situation. That is not the situation in Australia," he added.
Australia’s comeback from #COVID19 continues to gather pace. Our economy grew 3.1% in the fourth quarter of 2020, which is better than all the G7 countries and the OECD average. Our Government is continuing to focus on creating jobs and driving our recovery from this pandemic.
— Scott Morrison (@ScottMorrisonMP) March 3, 2021
"This particular shipment was not one we'd counted on for the rollout, and so we will continue unabated," Morrison said.
Australia's chief medical officer, Paul Kelly, also offered solidarity: "My sister lives in Italy. They're at the moment having 18,000 cases a day."
AstraZeneca already under pressure to deliver
The European Commission has criticised AstraZeneca, an Anglo-Swedish company, for supplying just a fraction of the vaccine doses it had promised to deliver to the bloc.
Italy's export ban rekindled accusations of "vaccine nationalism", something Morrison rejected, pointing to the large number of vaccines that have already left the European Union.
Australia has received 300,000 AstraZeneca doses so far.
That batch, along with supplies of the Pfizer vaccine, is expected to last until domestic production is scaled up at the end of the month.
Pharmaceutical company CSL is producing AstraZeneca's vaccine in Australia after its own candidate did not successfully conclude trials.
Local production is more than adequate
In total, around 50 million doses are expected to be produced in Australia.
Morrison said that capacity had given Australia "sovereignty over our vaccination program, which I think is incredibly important."
Though Australia approved vaccines later than most countries, it aims to have the vast majority of the adult population inoculated by October this year.
The country of about 25 million people has seen more than 25,000 virus cases since the pandemic began and around 900 deaths.
