Residents across regional and rural Queensland will be able to get their COVID-19 vaccinations from their local chemists within weeks.
Up to 56 community pharmacies in regional areas across the state have been selected by the state government to administer doses of the vaccine.
The exact locations, however, have not yet been revealed.
Federal Health Minister Greg Hunt and his Queensland counterpart, Yvette D'Ath, announced details of the initiative this morning.
Queensland was the first state to go ahead with the scheme, while other states and territories were looking at introducing similar models, they said.
"This is all about ensuring Queenslanders can take up the opportunity to get their COVID-19 vaccine — regardless of where they live," Ms D'Ath said on Facebook.
Selected pharmacies
Ms D'Ath said that over the next few weeks, the program would be set up across pharmacies in selected areas where "there are no or limited other points of" access to the COVID vaccine.
Ms D'Ath said the logistics of the plan were still being worked out between the Commonwealth, Queensland's health department and pharmacies.
Under the national pharmacy vaccine rollout document, chemists would only administer the AstraZeneca vaccine, not the Pfizer formula.
The Queensland pharmacy rollout follows a national Cabinet decision last month to allow the states and territories to incorporate community pharmacies into their vaccine plans.
Mr Hunt and Ms D'Ath said the pharmacies had undertaken a robust expression of interest assessment.
More in coming months
The ministers said more pharmacies were expected to be added to the initiative as additional vaccine supply was delivered in the coming months "to ensure the broadest possible coverage for the community".
The announcement coincided with one new case of COVID-19 recorded in Queensland overnight.
The person became infected with the virus overseas and it was detected in hotel quarantine.
More than 8,000 tests were conducted in the past 24 hours.
More than three million Australians have now had at least one vaccine dose since the national rollout began in February.
The federal government said that included a record 95,000 people in the past 24 hours.
