OTTAWA — The Public Well being Company of Canada is anticipating a smaller-than-normal cargo of COVID-19 vaccines this week, with fewer than 445,000 doses of Pfizer-BioNTech pictures scheduled for supply over the subsequent seven days.
But that seeming trickle is about to blow up right into a full-blown flood beginning the week of March 22 as the businesses dramatically ramp up their deliveries and different pharmaceutical corporations begin making good on their very own promised shipments.
The Public Well being Company says this coming week would be the final through which Canada will obtain fewer than 1 million doses over a seven-day interval. Pfizer and BioNTech alone are on faucet to ship greater than that every week for the foreseeable future.
Canada can be anticipated to start out receiving extra pictures of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine beginning in April, in addition to Johnson & Johnson’s one-dose inoculation. These are along with the bi-weekly supply of doses from Moderna, the subsequent of which is scheduled for the week of March 22.
Public Procurement Minister Anita Anand stated on Friday that Canada is on monitor to obtain 7 million vaccine doses from the assorted corporations by the top of April, with a complete of 36.5 million delivered by the top of June and 118 million earlier than Sept. 30.
This week’s anticipated lull comes amid a report that greater than 3 million COVID-19 vaccine doses had been administered in Canada as of Sunday, based on COVID19tracker.ca, with greater than six per cent of the inhabitants having acquired a dose.
The approaching week can be anticipated to see Canada’s Nationwide Advisory Committee on Immunization launch new steerage on the AstraZeneca vaccine for seniors after initially discouraging their use for older residents.
These vaccines have been underneath the highlight over the previous week amid issues inside some European international locations about alleged hyperlinks to blood clots, although Canadian officers have stated there is no such thing as a scientific proof to assist such a hyperlink.
“There’s not an excellent organic rationalization about why a vaccine of this kind, injected right into a muscle, would trigger that type of opposed occasion,” Well being Canada’s chief medical adviser Dr. Supriya Sharma instructed The Canadian Press final week.
Denmark, Iceland, Norway and Bulgaria are amongst nearly a dozen European nations that paused the usage of AstraZeneca’s vaccine final week — both totally or particular batches — after reviews of some sufferers creating blood clots afterward. Eire joined the record on Sunday.
None of these international locations’ well being officers stated there was proof of a hyperlink, however somewhat they had been pausing use of the product out of an abundance of warning pending a evaluation.
AstraZeneca launched a press release on Sunday saying a evaluation of 17 million sufferers who acquired the shot in Europe and the UK confirmed no elevated threat of blood clotting.
Ann Taylor, the corporate’s chief medical officer, stated there’s no elevated threat of both pulmonary embolism, deep vein thrombosis or thrombocytopenia in any age group, gender, batch of vaccines or nation.
The corporate stated there are reviews of 15 sufferers experiencing deep-vein thrombosis and 22 pulmonary embolisms as of March 8, which is way decrease than what would happen naturally in a inhabitants of greater than 17 million individuals.
Germany, France, Poland, Nigeria and the UK are all among the many international locations becoming a member of Canada in sticking with AstraZeneca injections.
This report by The Canadian Press was first revealed March 15, 2021.
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