Sydney, Aug 15 (AP) Poland has sent 1 million COVID-19 vaccines to Sydney where the delta variant continues to spread, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said on Sunday.

The first of the Pfizer vaccines left Warsaw via the United Arab Emirates and will arrive in Sydney over Sunday night, Morrison said.

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Australia bought the vaccines after weeks of negotiations between Morrison and his Polish counterpart Mateusz Morawiecki. Morrison did not reveal the price.

“A key factor in being able to secure these doses from our Polish friends has been that we have had a significant outbreak in our largest city,” Morrison said.

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Sydney has been in lockdown since June 26 due to an outbreak first detected 10 days earlier. Surrounding New South Wales state was entirely locked down from Saturday because of recent infections detected in regional towns and virus found in wastewater in the state's north and west.

Residents aged 20-to-39 in Sydney's worst-effected areas would be given 530,000 of the new doses. This age group was responsible for most of the virus spread, Morrison said.

The remaining doses would be shared with other Australian states and territories.

Only 25% of Australians aged 16 and older had been fully vaccinated by Friday. (AP)

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)