National Post (National Edition)
VACCINES DOSES FOR CHARITY... AND CANADA
Canada taps vaccine supply for poor nations
OTTAWA • Canada is one of the few wealthy countries thus far to exercise an option to bolster its vaccine supply by accessing COVAX, a global pool created to help supply poorer countries who cannot afford to procure their own vaccines.
The COVAX pool is co-ordinated by the World Health Organization and the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunizations (Gavi), and was established as a global vaccine-sharing initiative.
Canada's procurement minister, Anita Anand, told The Canadian Press that up to 1.9 million doses of AstraZeneca's vaccine could arrive through Gavi's COVAX Facility by the end of March and up to 3.2 million total by the end of June, pending Health Canada's approval of that vaccine.
Although COVAX published a list on Wednesday that says Canada was allocated 1.9 million doses by the end of June, with no mention at all that it could go up to 3.2 million.
The doses are over and above the 20 million doses Canada bought directly from AstraZeneca.
Gavi pools funds from wealthier countries to buy vaccines for themselves and to supply 92 low- and middle-income nations that can't afford to buy on their own through the COVAX Advanced Market Commitment facility. Canada contributed $440 million to COVAX in September, half of which secured doses for Canada directly from about nine vaccines that are participating in the program, and the rest donated to supply poorer countries.
The extra COVAX supply could get some of Canada's most vulnerable people vaccinated faster, but for many of the world's poorest countries, the COVAX doses starting to ship this winter will be the first COVID-19 vaccines they will see.
Of the more than 100 countries listed on Gavi's COVAX Interim Distribution Forecast, published Wednesday, Canada is listed as one of only a handful of wealthy participant countries, as well as New Zealand, South Korea and Singapore, set to receive doses from the global initiative. The distribution overwhelmingly consists of developing or middle-income countries. Not all countries wealthy enough to order their own vaccine supplies participated in the Gavi program, but Canada both participated and publicly expressed written interest in participating in the COVAX supply facility. Several other relatively wealthy countries, including Australia and the U.K., have expressed interest in participating in COVAX but have not yet used the facility.
Canada has struggled to maintain steady vaccine supplies, with early order volumes lagging those of peer countries, such as the U.S., the U.K. and Israel. Low initial order volumes have been exacerbated by production-related shortages in expected shipments from Pfizer and Moderna, the only two vaccines approved so far by Health Canada. Canada got no doses at all last week, and this week is getting only 20 per cent of what was promised from Pfizer and 80 per cent of what Moderna promised. Provinces and territories, which in mid-January got close to vaccinating 50,000 people a day, only vaccinated 5,000 people on Jan. 31.
Canada and other developed countries have been criticized for using their wealth and influence to snap up a majority of vaccines for themselves. COVAX was supposed to prevent that, and International Development Minister Karina Gould said Wednesday that Canada continues to support that goal, and that Ottawa was only drawing from the COVAX supply of doses available to donor countries.
“We've been clear from the start. Canada is strongly determined to vaccinate Canadians while making sure that the rest of the world is not getting left behind. Our participation into COVAX is a concrete example of that,” her office said in a statement. “Our contribution to the global mechanism had always been intended to access vaccine doses for Canadians as well as to support lower-income countries.”
The World Health Organization recently asked wealthy countries to urgently start donating their surplus vaccine orders to COVAX for distribution to developing countries, where vaccination rates rank among the lowest in the world. “I urge countries that have contracted more vaccines than they will need, and are controlling the global supply, to donate and release them to COVAX immediately,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters in Geneva last Friday. However, the Canadian government has said it is too early to commit to any such donations.
Ottawa says it has now ordered more than 80 million doses of the approved Pfizer and Moderna vaccines for this year, in addition to tens of millions of doses from other suppliers still awaiting approval. However Canada still lags dozens of other countries in terms of actually taking delivery of vaccines and administering them. To date, Canada has vaccinated 2.29 per cent of its population, compared to the U.S. with 9.8-per-cent vaccinated, the U.K. with 14.9-per-cent vaccinated, and Israel at 58.8 per cent.
COVAX intends to distribute about two billion doses this year, which should be enough, it believes, to vaccinate the most vulnerable globally, including front-line health workers and seniors.