OTTAWA —
Health Canada is not yet ready to make a decision about approving the COVID-19 vaccine from AstraZeneca, more than two weeks after it signalled the ruling could be imminent.
The World Health Organization gave its seal of approval to AstraZeneca Monday, and if Health Canada follows suit, almost 500,000 doses could be shipped to Canada in March through the global vaccine-sharing program known as COVAX.
But Health Canada is still having a back and forth with the British-based company on the clinical data behind the vaccine.
“Health Canada continues to work with AstraZeneca to receive the information needed to complete its review,” said Kathleen Marriner, a spokeswoman for the department.
While it was expected AstraZeneca would be the third vaccine approved in Canada, it is now on the verge of being surpassed by Johnson and Johnson.
The Food and Drug Administration in the United States is meeting to decide on approving that vaccine Feb. 26, and the European Medicines Agency expects to make a decision in early March. Health Canada has been collaborating with both on vaccine reviews for COVID-19.
“While each country makes independent decisions in keeping with its own processes, Health Canada is on similar timelines with the decisions of our key regulatory partners, once all of the data needed to make a decision has been received and reviewed,” Marriner said.
In addition to getting AstraZeneca doses from COVAX, Canada bought 20 million directly from the company, and 10 million doses from Johnson and Johnson. Deliveries of both would begin this spring if they get approved.
Nobody has yet approved Johnson and Johnson’s vaccine, but AstraZeneca has been authorized by more than two dozen jurisdictions. Only Pfizer-BioNTech’s COVID-19 vaccine has been approved in more places.
The FDA is waiting for a clinical trial of AstraZeneca’s vaccine in the U.S. to be finished, but Europe authorized it Jan. 29. That decision prompted Health Canada to change its language from saying the AstraZeneca review was “ongoing”, to saying a decision would be announced “in the coming days.”
On Feb. 9, Health Canada’s chief medical adviser Dr. Supriya Sharma said the review was in “the final stages,” just awaiting some final “back and forth” to finalize the rules for how the vaccine is to be used and on whom.
A week later, and there is still no sign that decision is imminent.
Sharma said the vaccine has been complicated to review because of a number of factors, including a mix-up in how big the doses were during the clinical trial and questions about how effective it is against new variants of the virus that causes COVID-19.
South Africa last week stopped using AstraZeneca’s vaccine completely, fearing it wasn’t doing enough to prevent people from getting sick from the B.1.351 variant that now dominates infections there.
The company was also challenged about what data it had on the effect the vaccine had in older adults, with fears not enough people over 65 were exposed to the virus after getting the vaccine to be certain of how well it protected them. Antibody tests, however, showed similar immune responses in people over 65 as was seen in younger people.
Many European countries, including France and Germany, authorized it only for use on people younger than 65. Several other countries have approved it for all age groups, including the United Kingdom, which has leaned heavily on the AstraZeneca vaccine to get at least one dose to nearly 16 million people in just two months.
The World Health Organization’s approval this week is also for everyone over the age of 18.
The age decision is one factor that has been of concern to Health Canada, Sharma noted last week.
Canada has been falling down the list of countries in terms of how many people have been vaccinated, largely as deliveries of both vaccines approved here slowed in mid-January.
As of Wednesday afternoon, almost one million people have received at least one dose, with 335,000 of them having received the second needed dose. But the U.K. has vaccinated almost one in four people, and the United States about one in six.
Procurement Minister Anita Anand told a Canadian Chamber of Commerce event Wednesday that the delays did slow things down but that the worst is over.
“I think what you are going to see is the story on vaccinations is still being written,” she said. “Canada is going to see a very, very steep incline in the next weeks and months ahead.”
Pfizer-BioNTech’s delivery delays are now over, with 403,000 doses arriving this week and plans to ship three million over the next six weeks. Moderna intends to ship almost 1.5 million doses before the end of March.
Together the two companies are to ship 20.8 million doses in the spring and more than 50 million in the summer.
Pfizer’s deliveries did face another slight delay Monday, but this time weather was the culprit. A snowstorm in Louisville, Ky., prompted UPS to close its air hub there, pushing Canada’s deliveries back 24 to 36 hours.
Canada’s doses come from Belgium but are shipped via Kentucky. Health Canada says the shipments should all be in Canada by Friday.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 17, 2021.
VANCOUVER – Contract negotiations resume today in Vancouver in a labour dispute that has paralyzed container cargo shipping at British Columbia’s ports since Monday.
The BC Maritime Employers Association and International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 514 are scheduled to meet for the next three days in mediated talks to try to break a deadlock in negotiations.
The union, which represents more than 700 longshore supervisors at ports, including Vancouver, Prince Rupert and Nanaimo, has been without a contract since March last year.
The latest talks come after employers locked out workers in response to what it said was “strike activity” by union members.
The start of the lockout was then followed by several days of no engagement between the two parties, prompting federal Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon to speak with leaders on both sides, asking them to restart talks.
MacKinnon had said that the talks were “progressing at an insufficient pace, indicating a concerning absence of urgency from the parties involved” — a sentiment echoed by several business groups across Canada.
In a joint letter, more than 100 organizations, including the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, Business Council of Canada and associations representing industries from automotive and fertilizer to retail and mining, urged the government to do whatever it takes to end the work stoppage.
“While we acknowledge efforts to continue with mediation, parties have not been able to come to a negotiated agreement,” the letter says. “So, the federal government must take decisive action, using every tool at its disposal to resolve this dispute and limit the damage caused by this disruption.
“We simply cannot afford to once again put Canadian businesses at risk, which in turn puts Canadian livelihoods at risk.”
In the meantime, the union says it has filed a complaint to the Canada Industrial Relations Board against the employers, alleging the association threatened to pull existing conditions out of the last contract in direct contact with its members.
“The BCMEA is trying to undermine the union by attempting to turn members against its democratically elected leadership and bargaining committee — despite the fact that the BCMEA knows full well we received a 96 per cent mandate to take job action if needed,” union president Frank Morena said in a statement.
The employers have responded by calling the complaint “another meritless claim,” adding the final offer to the union that includes a 19.2 per cent wage increase over a four-year term remains on the table.
“The final offer has been on the table for over a week and represents a fair and balanced proposal for employees, and if accepted would end this dispute,” the employers’ statement says. “The offer does not require any concessions from the union.”
The union says the offer does not address the key issue of staffing requirement at the terminals as the port introduces more automation to cargo loading and unloading, which could potentially require fewer workers to operate than older systems.
The Port of Vancouver is the largest in Canada and has seen a number of labour disruptions, including two instances involving the rail and grain storage sectors earlier this year.
A 13-day strike by another group of workers at the port last year resulted in the disruption of a significant amount of shipping and trade.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
The Royal Canadian Legion says a new partnership with e-commerce giant Amazon is helping boost its veterans’ fund, and will hopefully expand its donor base in the digital world.
Since the Oct. 25 launch of its Amazon.ca storefront, the legion says it has received nearly 10,000 orders for poppies.
Online shoppers can order lapel poppies on Amazon in exchange for donations or buy items such as “We Remember” lawn signs, Remembrance Day pins and other accessories, with all proceeds going to the legion’s Poppy Trust Fund for Canadian veterans and their families.
Nujma Bond, the legion’s national spokesperson, said the organization sees this move as keeping up with modern purchasing habits.
“As the world around us evolves we have been looking at different ways to distribute poppies and to make it easier for people to access them,” she said in an interview.
“This is definitely a way to reach a wider number of Canadians of all ages. And certainly younger Canadians are much more active on the web, on social media in general, so we’re also engaging in that way.”
Al Plume, a member of a legion branch in Trenton, Ont., said the online store can also help with outreach to veterans who are far from home.
“For veterans that are overseas and are away, (or) can’t get to a store they can order them online, it’s Amazon.” Plume said.
Plume spent 35 years in the military with the Royal Engineers, and retired eight years ago. He said making sure veterans are looked after is his passion.
“I’ve seen the struggles that our veterans have had with Veterans Affairs … and that’s why I got involved, with making sure that the people get to them and help the veterans with their paperwork.”
But the message about the Amazon storefront didn’t appear to reach all of the legion’s locations, with volunteers at Branch 179 on Vancouver’s Commercial Drive saying they hadn’t heard about the online push.
Holly Paddon, the branch’s poppy campaign co-ordinator and bartender, said the Amazon partnership never came up in meetings with other legion volunteers and officials.
“I work at the legion, I work with the Vancouver poppy office and I go to the meetings for the Vancouver poppy campaign — which includes all the legions in Vancouver — and not once has this been mentioned,” she said.
Paddon said the initiative is a great idea, but she would like to have known more about it.
The legion also sells a larger collection of items at poppystore.ca.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
