OTTAWA-
Canada is on the verge of throwing away more than half of its doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine as it has found no takers either at home or abroad.
He has also not yet explained how he plans to handle the millions of doses of Novavax and Medicago vaccines he has purchased but is unlikely to use himself.
Canada signed a contract with AstraZeneca in 2020 for 20 million doses of its vaccine, and 2.3 million Canadians received at least one dose, mostly between March and June 2021.
Following concerns in the spring of 2021 about rare but life-threatening blood clots from AstraZeneca, and with larger supplies of mRNA vaccines from Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna, Canada discontinued use of AstraZeneca. In July 2021, it promised to donate the rest of its purchased supply, around 17.7 million doses.
In an emailed statement, Health Canada said “Canada has done everything possible” to keep that promise, but 13.6 million doses earmarked for that purpose have expired and will have to be discarded.
“Due to the limited demand for the vaccines and difficulties encountered by recipient countries in distribution and uptake, they have not been accepted,” the statement said.
In June 2021, Canada also said it would also donate 4.1 million doses of AstraZeneca that it paid for from vaccine-sharing alliance COVAX, but would not have any. no need.
In total, Canada donated 8.9 million doses of AstraZeneca through bilateral agreements and its COVAX supply, to 21 countries, between August 4, 2021 and March 25, 2022.
Dr. Bruce Aylward, an infectious disease specialist from St. John’s and now a senior adviser to the head of the World Health Organization, told The Canadian Press in a recent interview that Canada’s lack of trust in AstraZeneca has contributed global vaccine hesitancy.
He said countries like Canada first hoarded all the vaccines, then rejected AstraZeneca and offered it to low-income countries to fulfill their pledges. Often these donations were made in large quantities as they approached their expiration date.
A glut of doses of a vaccine that people were hesitant to get in countries lacking the health workers and infrastructure to run a rapid and complex vaccination campaign, was the perfect storm for rejection and expiration.
“They made it incredibly difficult for political leaders in low-income countries to get media coverage,” Aylward said.
About 85% of Canadians are considered fully immunized, compared to 61% of the world’s population and only 16% of people living in the world’s poorest countries.
Adam Houston, head of medical policy and advocacy for Doctors Without Borders in Canada, said 75% of the doses of AstraZeneca that Canada has pledged to donate are going to be thrown away “is hugely disappointing.”
“It highlights how vaccines in press releases don’t translate to vaccines in guns,” he said. “Today, the global supply of vaccines is no longer the main problem. But a year ago, he absolutely was. If the actions of countries like Canada had matched their rhetoric on vaccine equity since the start of the pandemic, fewer vaccines would have been wasted. , and much more importantly, more lives would have been saved.”
Canada has also pledged to donate 10 million doses each from Johnson & Johnson and Moderna. The first had production problems, and Canada did not donate any of these vaccines. It donated 6.1 million doses of Moderna to four countries between December and June, but an additional 1.2 million doses of Moderna expired and were discarded in Canada.
NDP health critic Don Davies said it’s “unacceptable” that doses are expiring when millions of people still haven’t had a single shot.
“There is no excuse for such waste,” Davies said.
He called on the federal government to finally release full details of its vaccine contracts and dose utilization plan.
Canada has also signed contracts to get 52 million doses of the vaccine from Novavax and 20 million from Medicago, but now relies almost entirely on Pfizer and Moderna.
Canada has received 3.2 million doses of Novavax so far, with no current plans for further deliveries. He did not receive Medicago, but a spokeswoman said Canada was working with that company on a delivery schedule.
The World Health Organization authorized Novavax’s vaccine for emergency use in December and Health Canada in February. The contract allows Canada to donate doses of both, but there has been no confirmation that Canada intends to donate them.
Medicago’s donation is more complex because the World Health Organization will not approve its use by COVAX due to Medicago’s financial ties to tobacco giant Philip Morris.
Neither Novavax nor Medicago responded to media inquiries Tuesday.