SYDNEY: Australia will roll out a fifth dose of COVID-19 vaccine later this month to all citizens aged 18 and above who have not contracted coronavirus or been vaccinated in the past six months, Health Minister Mark Butler said on Wednesday (Feb 8).
The decision expands eligibility for the booster shot to include about 14 million people, more than half the country’s population, who will be offered Omicron variant-specific vaccines from Feb 20, Butler said.
Only severely immuno-compromised people had been recommended to take a fifth dose until now, the advice being to receive the booster three months after their fourth shot.
Australia, which is among the most heavily vaccinated countries against the coronavirus, has so far administered two vaccine doses to 95 per cent of people above 16.
This has helped Australia to keep its COVID-19 numbers relatively low compared with other developed economies.
But there has been a slow uptake of booster shots, with official data showing around 72 per cent having had a third dose and only 44 per cent their fourth one.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by PostX News and is published from a syndicated feed.)
