SYDNEY • New Zealand started its official roll-out of Pfizer-BioNTech's Covid-19 vaccine yesterday, while Australia finalised plans to begin inoculations tomorrow, a new phase in tackling the virus that both countries have kept largely contained.

A small group of medical professionals were injected on Friday in Auckland ahead of the wider roll-out, which was officially starting with border staff and so-called Managed Isolation and Quarantine workers yesterday, officials said.

In Australia, hotel quarantine and healthcare workers will also be the first cohort to be inoculated at 16 Pfizer vaccination hubs across the nation, alongside older Australians at aged care facilities.

New Zealand Health Minister Ashley Bloomfield told reporters in Auckland: "Today, we kick off the largest immunisation programme in our history, by vaccinating the first of our border workforce, a critical step in protecting everyone in Aotearoa."

Aotearoa is the country's indigenous Maori name.

New Zealand expects that its nationwide roll-out covering the country's population of five million will take a full year, while Australia aims to inoculate its 25 million citizens by October.

No new Covid-19 infections were reported in the communities of either country in the previous 24 hours despite tens of thousands of tests, officials said.

Both nations ended snap local lockdowns last week after a cluster emerged from a quarantine hotel in Melbourne, and as the New Zealand authorities investigate how a strain of a highly transmissible UK variant was found in three members of an Auckland family.

The two countries rank among the top 10 globally in a Covid-19 performance index for their successful handling of the pandemic.

REUTERS