The commitment, worth more $100 million, will see Australia help with on-the-ground vaccination, health workforce training and awareness campaigns through to helping buy the medical equipment needed to administer injections. It is part of a broader commitment from The Quad nations to provide more than one billion vaccine doses to South East Asia.

This $100 million comes on top of the $523 million already invested in the vaccine rollout in South-East Asia and the Pacific, and the $80 million committed to the COVAX facility by the Australian Government.

“All up, the Government has committed around $700 million in vaccine support,” World Vision Australia CEO Daniel Wordsworth said. “That is support of historic proportions and demonstrates the type of friendship our neighbours and family in the Indo-Pacific region have come to know and expect from Australia.”

Minister for International Development and the Pacific Zed Seselja said yesterday the Government was continuing to look at ways to make the vaccine available through direct funding, direct bi-lateral funding and logistical support, particularly for the last mile.

“At World Vision, we are there, walking with these communities for the last mile, the first mile, and every mile in between. And we have been doing that in the region for over 45 years,” Mr Wordsworth said.

“Since the start of the pandemic, we have been integrating a COVID-19 response in our existing programmes across the region. Nowhere is this more important than in Papua New Guinea right now.  We are working hard to extract everything we can out of our programs and are looking at ways to do more,” Mr Wordsworth said. “We have a long way to travel together as a region, but these historic and extraordinary commitments demonstrate Australia’s willingness to walk as a family with our neighbours.”