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Finance Minister Simon Birmingham says Australia is in a very “fortunate position” in being one of around 13 countries globally able to manufacture their own COVID-19 vaccines. “By some reports we’re one of only about 13 countries in the world in a position to manufacture their own vaccines,” he said. “We’re in a much more fortunate position than the US or Europe or most other parts of the world, both in having not only the potential to manufacture vaccines here but also not having the emergency crisis pandemic situation. “We’ve been able to go through the right process, but I think people will see the numbers exponentially increasing over coming weeks." Mr Birmingham said domestic production of the AstraZeneca vaccine is the “life saver” in Australia’s COVID recovery with CSL expected to produce one million doses of a week. “We now have that surety of domestic supply that can be distributed across Australia and allow us to open up from what has been a highly targeted vaccine rollout in the first few weeks."
