OTTAWA —
Amid questions about when the 20 million AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine doses Canada has a contract for will begin arriving in this country, Ambassador to the United States Kirsten Hillman said U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration isn’t holding back any shots destined for Canada.
“The U.S. absolutely did not hold up the release of any vaccines that were destined for Canada,” Hillman said in an interview on CTV’s Question Period, noting the U.S. is offering to send Canada 1.5 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine early, in a dose-sharing deal that’s still being solidified.
The 1.5 million doses would come from the U.S. stockpile, as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) hasn’t approved the AstraZeneca vaccine for use in that country, and not as part of the contract Canada has with AstraZeneca for 20 million doses of the vaccine developed in partnership with Oxford University that’s being manufactured in the U.S.
However, the expectation is that as part of the agreement, Canada would pay the U.S. back with 1.5 million of those AstraZeneca doses in return, in the months ahead.
“The arrangement that we secured with the United States late last week was to provide to Canada 1.5 million doses, from the U.S. supply that they had. This is terrific news for us, because obviously it means that those doses are going to get into the arms of Canadians, much more quickly,” said the ambassador.
Hillman went on to say that the holdup on Canada’s contracted AstraZeneca-Oxford shots isn’t due to Biden seeking to practice vaccine nationalism, rather that: “the delivery schedule of those doses was such that we were expecting the first delivery of those doses in June, with more to follow over the course of the summer.”
APRIL, MAY, OR JUNE?
While Hillman said Canada wasn’t expecting these doses until June, Procurement Minister Anita Anand continues to say the delivery schedule has yet to be finalized with the pharmaceutical company. The contract details with this and the other vaccine producers have not been made public by the federal government.
To date, the government has said the vaccines through the AstraZeneca-Oxford deal are expected to arrive starting in Q2, at some point between April and the end of June, with more expected in the third quarter between July and the end of September.
Seeking clarity on whether the Q2 shipments aren’t expected until the last month of that quarter, Anand’s office referred to comments made in a separate interview on Sunday’s episode of CTV’s Question Period.
“We are negotiating with AstraZeneca right now, and I have stressed the importance of having a delivery schedule for those 20 million doses as soon as possible, so that the provinces and territories can continue their planning,” Anand said.
Health Canada authorized the AstraZeneca vaccine in February. In the cases of the approval of the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines, batches of doses from those contracts began trickling into Canada in the days and weeks following the federal health agency’s regulatory approval, at regular intervals.
In total, Canada is expecting to receive 23.9 million AstraZeneca doses. On top of the 20-million contract, a separate agreement will see two million doses come to Canada from the Serum Institute in India, as well as another 1.9 million doses that are expected to be sent to Canada through the COVAX program in the coming months.
So far, 500,000 AstraZeneca doses have arrived in Canada from the Serum Institute.
MORE U.S. DOSES?
Asked if Canada could expect to receive additional extra doses from the United States, Hillman said that the Biden administration’s priority remains ensuring the supply is there to vaccinate all American adults by the end of May, but it’s possible.
“I think they will supply what they can, when they’re confident they can meet their own needs, but as you know, just like our prime minister, the president here really has to put his people first,” said Hillman.
“We have been saying, and I think the Americans very much accept, that their country, here in the U.S., is not going to get back to full normalcy, and is not going to move towards economic recovery in a full way, if it cannot operate well with its neighbours. So, economic recovery is going to require both Canada and Mexico also being on a path to having the virus under control.”
TORONTO – Unifor says workers at a Walmart warehouse in Mississauga, Ont., have voted to join the union.
The union says it’s Walmart’s first warehouse to unionize in Canada.
Unifor national president Lana Payne says the employees stood up for their rights and the union is excited to get to work on their first collective agreement.
Unifor’s campaign at Walmart’s facility began in December 2023.
The vote was held from Sept. 10 to 12.
Unifor represents 315,000 workers across the country.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
The Canadian government says it will donate up to 200,000 vaccine doses to fight the mpox outbreak in Congo and other African countries.
It says the donated doses of Imvamune will come from Canada’s existing supply and will not affect the country’s preparedness for mpox cases in this country.
Minister of Health Mark Holland says the donation “will help to protect those in the most affected regions of Africa and will help prevent further spread of the virus.”
Dr. Madhukar Pai, Canada research chair in epidemiology and global health, says although the donation is welcome, it is a very small portion of the estimated 10 million vaccine doses needed to control the outbreak.
Vaccine donations from wealthier countries have only recently started arriving in Africa, almost a month after the World Health Organization declared the mpox outbreak a public health emergency of international concern.
A few days after the declaration in August, Global Affairs Canada announced a contribution of $1 million for mpox surveillance, diagnostic tools, research and community awareness in Africa.
On Thursday, the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention said mpox is still on the rise and that testing rates are “insufficient” across the continent.
Jason Kindrachuk, Canada research chair in emerging viruses at the University of Manitoba, said donating vaccines, in addition to supporting surveillance and diagnostic tests, is “massively important.”
But Kindrachuk, who has worked on the ground in Congo during the epidemic, also said that the international response to the mpox outbreak is “better late than never (but) better never late.”
“It would have been fantastic for us globally to not be in this position by having provided doses a much, much longer time prior than when we are,” he said, noting that the outbreak of clade I mpox in Congo started in early 2023.
Clade II mpox, endemic in regions of West Africa, came to the world’s attention even earlier — in 2022 — as that strain of virus spread to other countries, including Canada.
Two doses are recommended for mpox vaccination, so the donation may only benefit 100,000 people, Pai said.
Pai questioned whether Canada is contributing enough, as the federal government hasn’t said what percentage of its mpox vaccine stockpile it is donating.
“Small donations are simply not going to help end this crisis. We need to show greater solidarity and support,” he said in an email.
“That is the biggest lesson from the COVID-19 pandemic — our collective safety is tied with that of other nations.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
Canadian Press health coverage receives support through a partnership with the Canadian Medical Association. CP is solely responsible for this content.
MONTREAL – A 20-year-old man arrested over an alleged Islamic State terror plot to kill Jews in New York City will return to court in December in Montreal.
Muhammad Shahzeb Khan, a Pakistani national living in Ontario, was arrested last week in Ormstown, Que., allegedly on his way across the border into New York state.
Khan has been charged in the United States with one count of attempting to provide material support and resources to a terrorist organization, and officials are seeking to have him extradited to stand trial.
He was not present for a hearing today in Quebec Superior Court, where lawyers said they are waiting for extradition documents and for authorization from Canadian officials before proceeding in the case, which will return before a judge on Dec. 6.
U.S. authorities allege that Khan, also known as Shahzeb Jadoon, intended to use “automatic and semi-automatic weapons” in a mass shooting at a Jewish centre in Brooklyn around Oct. 7, the one-year anniversary of the Hamas attack on Israel.
Authorities allege he began planning his attack in November 2023.
Earlier this week, federal Immigration Minister Marc Miller said Khan arrived in Canada in June 2023 on a student visa.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
