Australia should not be putting all its vaccine eggs in one basket, the shadow health minister, Chris Bowen, has said, although he shares the cautious optimism of his government counterpart, Greg Hunt, that a Covid-19 vaccine will be found.
Bowen said he welcomed announcements that the government was in negotiations for advanced supply of any developmental vaccine but said governments around the world had been entering into agreements since mid-May and, three months later, 20 agreements were in place, accounting for approximately 3bn doses.
He said the government needed to “assure” Australians they would not be put on the end of a list.
“It has to show Australians that just because 3bn doses of the vaccine have already been accounted for, through 20 other agreements being entered into by other governments, that Australia is not at the end of the queue,” Bowen said.
“The United States has six of these agreements are ready, the United Kingdom, three, Japan, three, Brazil has one, South Korea has one, the other countries have been moving quickly. The first agreement was entered into in May. What Greg Hunt has to do … is assure us that we are not at a disadvantage because we are so far behind the rest of the world.”
Hunt announced on Sunday that Australia was “in advanced negotiations with a range of different companies” in regards to a vaccine, which he believed would be made available in 2021.
The health minister said Australia had signed two non-disclosure agreements but was “working with the most advanced vaccines around Australia and around the world”.
“That’s good news for Australia, but it’s also good news for the world, a world with over 21m cases, with over three-quarters of a million agonising lives lost,” he told Sky News on Sunday morning. “This is a genuine ray of hope, and we’re advanced, we’re prepared, and we’re in a position to produce.”
Hunt said the world was moving “closer to a vaccine, and it’s unlikely that it will be just one, it’s likely that it will be many”.
“There are lead Australian candidates as well as international candidates, so we’re making very significant process across a comprehensive vaccine strategy,” he said.
“Research, direct negotiations, the international facility which is a multi-country investment in multiple potential vaccines, and then Australian contract productions through CSL which can produce the vast majority of vaccines under licence if that’s allowed, and we’re very confident that that will come through.”
But Bowen said the federal government needed to increase its funding to Australian researchers.
“There absolutely should be more commonwealth funding, and $5m to the University of Queensland is not enough when you consider that the government of Queensland is putting [in] $10m,” he said.
“The state government is putting in double what the national government has done and there are other vaccines under development in Australia with zero government support and funding for Covid-19. Some of those may work.
“But they will not reach the level we need without the government funding and the government also needs to be putting more into the international efforts, the cooperative international efforts to develop a vaccine.
“Of course more needs to be done. Just this week, the government issued a call for information about manufacturers whether they could help and gave them a few days to respond. I mean, that is very late, very late, very rushed and more could have been done earlier and more still can be done now.”
Bowen did agree with Hunt that there were “some signs for cautious optimism” a solution to the Covid virus puzzle would still be found.
“There are around 160 vaccines in various stages of clinical trials, we know they have a 96% failure rate so most of those will not come to fruition but a few will,” Bowen said.
“A few will. That is while I am saying we should not put all our eggs in the one basket, we should be managing risks and investing in multiple vaccines and striking multiple agreements so Australia is at the best place to have access to it, but there are some signs for optimism. I share that optimism.”
