Australia will receive 500,000 doses of Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine from Singapore this week, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said, after Canberra agreed a swap deal in a bid to curtail surging coronavirus infections.

According to Reuters, the agreement, which will see Australia return the same amount of Pfizer vaccine doses to Singapore in December, will allow Canberra to accelerate its vaccination programme as daily cases near record levels for the country.

“That means there are 500,000 doses extra that will happen in September that otherwise would have had to wait for several months from now, accelerating our vaccination program at this critical time as we walk towards those 70 per cent and 80pc targets,” Morrison told reporters in Canberra.