Canada hopes to Start Pfizer Covid Vaccination by Next Week

The health regulator of Canada has expressed its hope to begin the Pfizer covid vaccination all over the country as soon as next Tuesday after the regulator approved  Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine for emergency use on Wednesday (Dec 9).

The Health Canada approved the vaccine a few days earlier of possible approval in the United States. The COVID-19 vaccine produced by the US drug maker Pfizer and the German BioNTech vaccine have been authorized for use in the United Kingdom and Bahrain. Officials said they hope the United States will be authorized within a few days.

Howard Njoo, Canada’s deputy chief public health officer, has informed that officials plan to ship the first batch of the new vaccine to 14 places across the country by next week.

He added, “We have a reason to be optimistic and excited about returning to the lives we had before the pandemic. We anticipate having approved vaccines for 3 million Canadians between January and March with supply ramping up the rest of 2021.”

Dr. Supriya Sharma, chief medical adviser at Health Canada, said that this is a massive moment. No one would have thought, even when the Health Canada examined the first discovery of the virus, that less than a year later it would be allowed to distribute a vaccine.

Dr. Sharma said Canadians should feel at ease about getting the shot. It was only approved after a thorough evaluation of the evidence showed that it met all strict standards of Canada for safety, quality and efficacy.

Canada has recently modified this contract with Pfizer and will receive up to 249,000 doses by the end of the year and officials expect to start taking 30,000 doses next week after the first batch of products shipped from Belgium on Friday (Dec 11). About 124,500 Canadians at the highest risk will be vaccinated first, as each person required two doses several weeks apart.

Pfizer and BioNTech said that it will provide Canada with at least 20 million doses of vaccine by 2021 and as many as 76 million doses. Canada has signed contracts with six other vaccine manufacturers and is currently reviewing three other vaccines, including the Moderna vaccine, which Canadian health officials said can be approved soon.

The Government of Canada said it will initially set up 14 distribution centers in major Canadian cities. There must be at least one in each province and two in each of the four largest provinces in Canada.

In regard to the COVID-19 transmission in Canada, the country has reported a total number of 435,330 confirmed cases which are under treatment and 12,983 patients have died due to the virus. However, 350,011 patients who tested positive to the COVID-19 have completely recovered from the virus, as of Thursday (Dec 10).