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(Adds Australian PM spokesman, UK health secretary comments)
LONDON, April 8 (Reuters) - Hundreds of thousands of doses
of the AstraZeneca vaccine have been flown to Australia
from Britain but the source of the shipments was kept quiet to
avoid any controversy in Britain, The Sydney Morning Herald
reported.
As countries race to vaccinate their populations against the
coronavirus, the export of immunisations has come into dispute
wherever large numbers of people are awaiting a shot. The
European Union, hit by delays in vaccine supply, introduced
export controls on EU-produced shots in January.
The Sydney Morning Herald said that more than 700,000
vaccines flown to Australia were manufactured in Britain and not
in Europe as had been widely believed. The shipments arrived
after the EU introduced the curbs on vaccine exports, it said.
British Health Secretary Matt Hancock said his government
had not sent any vaccines to Australia and any exports that had
taken place were a matter for the companies concerned.
"In terms of what the companies do, these companies are
manufacturing for all around the world," Hancock told Sky News.
"What matters for us as the UK government is making sure
that we get the supplies that we have contracted from the
companies."
A spokesman for Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison
declined to comment.
The newspaper cited an unidentified British official as
saying that the shipments to Australia were never at the expense
of the UK’s vaccine rollout - one of the swiftest in the world.
In March, the European Commission blocked the shipment of
250,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine to Australia, and
Morrison has blamed the EU for delays to his country's
vaccination programme.
Britain has given 31.7 million people a first dose of a
COVID-19 vaccine. The number of infections, hospitalisations and
deaths have all fallen in recent weeks.
Israel is the world leader in vaccinating its population
against COVID-19, followed by the United Arab Emirates, Chile,
Britain, the United States, Bahrain, Serbia and Hungary,
according to Our World in Data.
(Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge; additional reporting by Colin
Packham and Sarah Young; Editing by Mark Heinrich)
