Health officials in Canada have announced that Pfizer will be temporarily reducing it’s COVID-19 vaccine shipments to Canada.
The Minister of Public Services and Procurement Canada, Anita Anand, made the announcement during a recent press conference.
The reduction in vaccine shipments is due to the fact that Pfizer is working to expand its manufacturing capacity in Europe.
While making the announcement, Anand said: “Production [of] the Pfizer BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine will be impacted for a short period.
“This expansion work means that Pfizer is temporarily reducing deliveries to all countries receiving vaccines manufactured at its European facility.
“And that includes Canada.”
Anand revealed that reduction would be a temporary delay and that Canada were still on track to have approved vaccines for every Canadian by the end of September 2021.
She described the situation as “unfortunate,” but remarked that such delays are expected to happen when global supply chains are stretched.
The Minister made it known that Canada has deals with no fewer that seven vaccine manufacturers and that Canada has the highest number of doses per capita of any country in the world.
She said: “This approach of ensuring diversity and volume months ago is what now gives us flexibility and margins to remain on track in difficult times. This is a temporary situation.”
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced on January 12 that the federal government would be procuring extra 20 million doses of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine candidate.
