`Significant' vaccine shortages hit B.C.
Dix says slowdown in shots will last just a month until Pfizer plant retools to boost output
Supply problems that will slow global deliveries of the Pfizer BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine over the next four weeks will affect B.C.'s vaccination plan “in a significant way,” Health Minister Adrian Dix said Friday.
“But just in the immediate period, the next month,” Dix told a teleconference to announce upgrades to the West Coast General Hospital in Port Alberni.
Federal Procurement Minister Anita Anand revealed on Friday that the pharmaceutical firms Pfizer and BioNTech, partners in the vaccine, will delay the delivery of promised doses to Canada and other countries it supplies from Pfizer's European manufacturing plant as it upgrades the plant.
In B.C., Dix said the province received the 25,000 doses of the Pfizer BioNTech vaccine it expected this week, but will experience a slight reduction in expected deliveries next week, then starting Jan. 25 will get only half of the 50,000 doses health officials had planned on through the beginning of February.
“This is going to have some impact and delay some of our immunization efforts,” Dix said, particularly in getting first doses of the two-dose vaccine to top priority groups — people living in long-term care, front-line health care workers and remote First Nationscommunities.
Dix said 75,914 British Columbians have received their first dose of either the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine so far. The B.C. plans call for patients to receive their second Pfizer dose 35 days later,
Obviously, when you receive fewer doses, you immunize fewer people.” Adrian Dix
which is longer than the 21 days recommended by the manufacturer.
“No decisions have been made about this, of course, the 35-day gap and what this might mean for that,” Dix said, “but obviously, when you receive fewer doses, you immunize fewer people.”
The province's policy has been to not hold back a reserve of second doses of the Pfizer vaccine so it could provide first shots to as many people as possible, so “this has an effect on that and something we're going to have to look at over the next few days.”
However, there has been no change in provincial policy about delivering the Pfizer vaccine as a two-dose regimen, but more details about how the vaccination plan will
be affected by the manufacturing delay will be revealed Monday by the province's immunization response team, led by a former deputy health minister, Dr. Penny Ballem.
Federal NDP health critic Don Davies said the Pfizer development should put more pressure on government to be more transparent about their deals with big pharmaceutical companies, especially
since COVID-19 cases are rising sharply elsewhere.
“People are making tremendous sacrifices to keep each other safe and they deserve to know what to expect,” Davies said in a statement.
He wants government to reveal the exact number of vaccine doses it has secured from manufacturers through September.
And he criticized the Liberals
for failing to negotiate a licensing agreement to manufacture the AstraZeneca vaccine, which has not yet been approved by Health Canada but has been approved by other countries such as Australia, Japan and Brazil.
On Friday, Anand said the Pfizer problem “is unfortunate. However such delays and issues are to be expected when global supply chains are stretched well beyond their limits. It's not a stoppage.”
Canada has received about 380,000 doses of the vaccine so far, and was supposed to get another 400,000 this month and almost two million doses in February.
The news comes as Ottawa released federal projections that suggest the pandemic may soon exceed levels in the first wave, rising to 19,630 cumulative deaths and 10,000 daily infections in a little over a week.
The modelling shows total cases could grow to nearly 796,630 from about 694,000, and that another 2,000 people could die by Jan. 24.