Mr Morrison, Foreign Minister Marise Payne and Health Minister Greg Hunt all reached out to their European counterparts on Wednesday night, making formal requests to redirect some of Australia’s 3.8 million internationally-made AstraZeneca doses.

Diplomats on the ground in Europe were also in discussions with the European Commission about sending vaccines to PNG.

Mr Hunt said on Thursday he had also spoken to the global head of AstraZeneca about getting 1 million doses from Europe to PNG.

“They’ve been very sympathetic about the fact that this is one way to assist not only fulfil their Australian contract, but also to provide humanitarian relief which they believe in,” he said.

Top infectious disease experts said PNG should take up the offer of Chinese-made vaccines if they were safe, with COVAX not expected to start delivering vaccine doses to PNG until April or May.

Fewer than 60,000 of PNG’s 9 million people have been tested for COVID-19, but the rapid increase in positive results over the last month has experts concerned about the scale of the epidemic.

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Medical staff have been hit hard, with 10 per cent of Port Moresby General Hospital’s staff, or 120 workers, contracting the disease.