Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced Friday that Pfizer-BioNTech has agreed to move up a portion of its vaccines scheduled for the summer, with an additional 1.5 million doses arriving in March.
This means Canada will have access to a total of eight million vaccine doses from Pfizer, Moderna, and AstraZeneca by the end of the first quarter, up from an original commitment of six million doses.
“With the newly confirmed delivery of an additional 1.5 million Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine doses arriving this month, as well as the 500,000 doses of the AstraZeneca Covishield vaccine that arrived this week from the Serum Institute, Canada is set to receive eight million doses of vaccines by the end of this quarter,” said Procurement Minister Anita Anand, at a press conference on Friday.
Pfizer is also accelerating shipments for April and May by one million additional doses each month. By the end of the second quarter, Canada is on track to receive 36.5 million doses and by the end of the third quarter, 117.9 million, which will include the now-approved Johnson & Johnson vaccine.
