New Zealand To Offer Its Citizen And Neighbouring Countries Free COVID-19 Vaccines

As the world is preparing to be injected with COVID-19 vaccines, New Zealand has announced that it would offer its citizens and neighboring countries free vaccines.

According to the country’s government officials, New Zealand has already purchased COVID-19 vaccines from AstraZeneca and Novavax.

The country also said that free vaccines would be sent to Cook Islands, Tokelau, Samoa, Niue, Tuvalu, and Tonga if they need them and request them.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, during a press conference, said that the initiative would be the immunization disbursement with the largest scale ever.

The vaccination program will be carried out in months, not weeks. However, with New Zealand’s pre-purchase agreements, it will receive the vaccines as soon as they are proved to be safe.

The country has also signed contracts for vaccines from Janssen Pharmaceutica and Pfizer-BioNTech.

New Zealand has ordered 7.6 million doses of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine for 3.8 million people. They also have purchased 10.72 million doses of Novaraz COVID-19 vaccines, enough for 5.36 million people. Both the AstraZeneca vaccine and the Novavax vaccine need two doses.

With the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, the UK has become the world’s first country to approve the drug for general use. Other nations are anticipating the UK’s vaccine launch as they wait for their own regulatory approval. The vaccine is said to be 95% effective in protecting people against the novel coronavirus. However, for some countries, the approval process could take months.

Yet, on the Internet, some sellers have already listed the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine for sale. Multiple vendors were found selling doses of the vaccine on the darknet to global customers for $1,300 per dose.

The marketing of COVID-19 vaccines on the darknet is nothing new. They have even been advertised as early as April. As countries continue to make new records for daily new cases, demand for the vaccine is extremely high.

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