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Summary
- Health Canada has approved Pfizer Inc (NYSE: PFE, PFE:US) and BioNTech SE’s COVID-19 vaccine for public use in the country.
- Administration of the vaccine shots are expected to begin as quickly as the third week of December.
- Prime Minister Trudeau said recently that Canada would receive at least 249,000 doses of the vaccine by December-end, which quickens the inoculation process earlier than expected.
- The Canadian government has reportedly booked more than 400 million COVID vaccine doses from different pharmaceutical brands, which is more doses per person than anywhere else in the world.
Health Canada greenlit the Pfizer Inc (NYSE: PFE, PFE:US) and BioNTech SE’s COVID-19 vaccine on Wednesday, December 9. The doses met its “quality requirements”, the national public health regulator announced in a statement.
The approval sets in motion the COVID vaccination campaign in Canada. Administration of the vaccine shots are expected to begin as quickly as the following week, i.e. third week of December.
About six million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine was originally supposed to reach Canada by the end of March 2021. But on Monday, December 7, Prime Minister Trudeau said that Canada would receive at least 249,000 doses of the vaccine by December-end, which quickens the inoculation process further than earlier expected. Another batch of three million doses is expected to arrive around January 2021.
The first batch of the vaccine is set to be distributed among 14 vaccination centres across the country and will be administered on the basis of priority.
The Pfizer-BioNTech jab has approval for administration among people over the age of 16 at the moment. Clinical trials for children are still under process.
©Kalkine Group Image
Canada’s Ample Access To COVID-19 Vaccines
The Canadian government plans to complete COVID-19 inoculation campaigns by the end of next year, it said in a recent document. However, a large chunk of that outcome depends of the health regulator’s approval of the other brands’ vaccines that Canada has booked so far.
Canada, with a population of about 38 million people, has reserved 20 million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. Along with that, it has booked about 20 million of the Moderna Inc (NASDAQ: MRNA, MRNA: US) shot (36 million more if need be), 20 million shots of the AstraZeneca-Oxford University drug, 76 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine by Novavax Inc (NASDAQ:NVAX) and the Johnson & Johnson vaccine’s 38 million shots.
In total, the government has reportedly booked more than 400 million COVID vaccine doses from different pharmaceutical brands, which is more doses per person than anywhere else in the world.
Health Canada said at its recent press address that it is currently evaluating three other COVID-19 vaccine candidates and of the three so far, Moderna Inc’s drug is the most advanced.
