The first tentative steps towards establishing Covid-19 vaccination hubs for seafarers has got off the ground.

The idea was discussed at the International Maritime Organization as a potential solution to returning hundreds of seafarers stranded in Brazil and Europe to their homes in the remote Pacific Islands.

Ports in Australia, Fiji and New Zealand offered themselves as possible crew transfer and vaccination hubs in an attempt to repatriate ships' crews from Kiribati, Samoa and Tonga.