Coronavirus Vaccines
Canada becomes second Western country to approve Pfizer's drug
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Major-General Dany Fortin, vice-president of logistics and operations at the Public Health Agency of Canada, at a news conference in Ottawa on Monday. Shipments of Pfizer's Covid-19 vaccine are set to start arriving in the country next week.
PHOTO: REUTERS
OTTAWA • Canada has become only the second Western country to approve a coronavirus vaccine, a week after Britain did so and with US regulators set to meet yesterday to consider taking that step, opening up the possibility that Canadians will start being inoculated next week.
Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said in Parliament that it was "a good day for Canadians".
"We will see 30,000 vaccines begin to arrive next week, with many more on the horizon, but... we've got a tough winter to get through," Mr Trudeau said on Wednesday.
General inoculations for all Canadians will begin in April after priority populations are taken care of, the government said in a vaccination plan released the same day.
The nation is now "well-positioned to immunise 100 per cent of the population in 2021", the plan said, while a separate table distributed by the Health Ministry said immunisation could be completed by the end of September.
Regulatory agency Health Canada on Wednesday approved the same vaccine, developed by American company Pfizer and German firm BioNTech, that was authorised in Britain and is up for a decision in the US.
Canada's move marks another milestone in the global fight against a pandemic that has killed more than 1.5 million people, continues to spread rapidly and has driven the world into a deep recession.
Health Canada said that it had completed a rigorous, independent review of the data from clinical trials on the vaccine's safety and effectiveness, which involved tens of thousands of people - the same kind of scrutiny applied by the US Food and Drug Administration.
Bahrain approved the same vaccine last Friday.
Ottawa's go-ahead means that Canadians could receive the vaccine - which requires two doses, weeks apart - before Americans do, though Pfizer is based in the United States.
The first shipments to Canada, of 249,000 doses, will come from a plant in Belgium, officials said.
Canada, which has a population of 38 million, has agreed to buy up to 76 million doses from Pfizer, and 414 million doses of other potential vaccines from other companies, but the roll-out will take months.
As of Tuesday, Canada had reported 429,035 total cases, an increase of 5,981 on the day before, and 12,867 deaths.
NYTIMES, REUTERS
