Justin Trudeau says Canada will share its surplus COVID-19 vaccines with other countries

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Friday that the country, which has ordered the purchase of more than 400 million doses of covid-19 vaccines, is ready to share with the rest of the world any surplus left after inoculating its population.

“If we have more vaccines than we need, we will definitely share them with the world.” The president said in an interview with the CTV network, a few days after the launch of a historic vaccination campaign.

The country of 38 million people ordered the purchase of over 400 million doses of vaccines from seven pharmaceutical groups, one of the largest in the world, according to Trudeau.

“In January, we will receive 125,000 doses of Pfizer vaccine per week, for a total of about 500,000 doses in that entire month,” the prime minister said.

Canada is also expected to receive 200,000 doses of Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine next week and 168,000 Modern vaccines before the end of December, after approval by Health Canada, the public health agency, a step that is expected in the coming days.

If approved, The Modern Vaccine will join Pfizer-BioNTech, whose first injections were given Monday to nursing home workers and residents of Ontario and Quebec.

The North American nation intends to vaccinate three million people by the end of the first quarter of 2021. Ottawa intends to vaccinate the entire population who want to be immunized by September 2021.

A possible donation of vaccines by Canada would be added to another action to ensure that other countries have access to the inoculant. In September, Canada pledged to invest approximately C $ 220 million ($ 172 million) in the Covax facility, set up by The World Health Organization (WHO) and the Vaccine Alliance (Gavi) for the distribution of vaccines in poor countries.

The mechanism has “gotten about 2 billion” doses so far, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a news conference on Friday.

Canada, where the spread of the virus has accelerated as the holidays come to an end, adds 492,701 infections and 13,992 deaths from the new coronavirus on Friday.

Trudeau was confident that the country would be able to carry out “the largest immunization campaign in the country’s history”, saying they had “the right plan and the necessary experience”. But also He warned that the situation in COVID-19 in Canada is deteriorating rapidly, which is why he called for “being more careful than ever.”

“Our fight against this virus is not over, even if we are preparing to say goodbye, never again, until 2020,” added the Canadian prime minister, who recalled that “Giving the vaccine in a week or a month would not help if you get covid-19 disease today.”

In parallel with vaccination campaigns, Canada’s two main provinces, Ontario and Quebec, are preparing to tighten economic and social restrictions in the face of a worsening pandemic and fears that the Christmas holidays will further aggravate the situation.

With information from AFP

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