Vaccine contract review to get under way

The government wants the review conducted as a matter of urgency to respond to emerging COVID variants and give Australians access to the best health measures, Health Minister Mark Butler says. 

"I make no judgment about the existing contracts. I have no reason to think that they're not appropriate," he told reporters in Canberra on Thursday. 

"But this is a fast-moving landscape, we need to make sure that we are agile ... to ensure that arrangements that might have been fantastic three months ago are fit for purpose for the rest of this year and into next year."

Key elements of the review will include a stocktake of vaccine and treatment supplies in Australia, possible virus developments and whether any changes need to be made to contracts inherited from the previous government.

While there is no deadline for the review, the minister said he expected it to be undertaken within weeks, not months.