MONTRÉAL, Québec (CU)_Health Canada is not yet ready to approve the COVID-19 vaccine developed by the University of Oxford, in collaboration with AstraZeneca, two weeks after the national health regulator signalled that the ruling is forthcoming.
The World Health Organization on Monday (Feb 15) gave the green light for the vaccine, and if the Canadian authorities are to follow suit, the country would be receiving almost 500,000 doses of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine in March, through the global vaccine-sharing programme COVAX. However, Health Canada has not yet made a decision on the vaccine and continues to share clinical data with the British pharmaceutical giant.
Apart from the doses expected through COVAX, the North American country has bought another 20 million directly from the company, and the shipments would begin this spring if they get approved.
Meanwhile, the vaccine is also awaiting the approval of the Food and Drug Administration in the United States, which is set to make a decision on February 26, although the European Union authorised the jab in late January.
On Feb. 9, Health Canada’s chief medical adviser Dr Supriya Sharma said the AstraZeneca review was in “the final stages,” just awaiting some final “back and forth” in order to finalize the rules for how the vaccine is to be inoculated and on whom. However, a week later, there is still no sign of the decision being imminent.
According to Dr Sharma, the delay is owing to a number of factors, including how effective it is against new variants of the virus, and its effects on older adults.
Nevertheless, many European countries, including Germany and France, authorised it only for the use on people younger than 65, while several other countries, especially the United Kingdom have been heavily reliant on the vaccine to inoculate all age groups. The World Health Organization, on the other hand, approved it for everyone over the age of 18, last week.
Canada has been falling behind many developed countries in terms of how many people have been vaccinated, mainly owing to delays in the shipments. As of Wednesday afternoon, almost one million people have received at least one dose, in comparison to the United Kingdom, where almost one in four people, and in the United States where about one in six people have been inoculated.
