This is an excerpt from Second Opinion, a weekly research of news about fitness and medical sciences. If you are still a subscriber, you can do so by clicking here.
Bivalent vaccines, which target more than one strain of coronavirus, are arriving in Canada, with Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine, the Omicron BA. 1 variant, being rolled out in provinces and territories this week.
And that’s just the beginning. Pfizer-BioNTech has an application for its BA. 4-BA. 5 vaccine, and Moderna’s vaccine targeting the same strains is also expected soon.
But with the launch of new, more targeted vaccines, what will happen to existing vaccines?
Federal Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos pledged last week to check to minimize vaccine waste as newer vaccines are rolled out. During the pandemic, Canada has donated some of its surplus vaccines to other countries, and federal health officials said last week they would continue to donate vaccines as they pleased.
But those who have largely followed Canada’s foreign vaccine promises say Canada’s history of shipping vaccines to low-income countries has been slow or too late for their expiration dates. more vaccines will be wasted as demand from other countries declines.
“It makes sense that you would get the latest, newest edition [of the vaccine], like you have to buy a new smartphone,” said Ananya Tina Banerjee, an assistant professor in McGill’s Department of Epidemiology, Biostatistics and Labor Studies. University. Department of Health.
“There will be even more vaccines [now] . . . wasted. “
The original vaccine will still want to be stockpiled in Canada. In its most recent presentations, the National Advisory Committee on Immunization (NACI) continues to introduce the number one vaccine with a legal mRNA vaccine.
Thousands of Canadians have yet to win their initial doses. According to federal data, about 86% of Canadians over the age of five have finished their number one series.
At the moment Canada keeps the original doses since they are the only ones approved lately for the number one series.
But the government has begun moving to new bivalent vaccines. Moderna and the Canadian recently agreed to convert six million doses of the company’s COVID-19 vaccine, which targets the original virus, into a bivalent vaccine containing Omicron.
The vaccine prescription is still needed, said Deepta Bhattacharya, a professor of immunobiology at the University of Arizona.
“Does it make sense to have only one Omicron [vaccine]? As a number one series, no, I don’t think so. Because it’s transparent that he has a fairly limited immunity to Omicron, but not some of the other things we have. “I’ve noticed it before,” Bhattacharya said.
The federal government allocated up to $8 billion to COVID-19 vaccines in early 2021, however, a spokesperson for the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) has shown how much has been spent so far.
As new doses become available, federal fitness officials said last week they would seek to minimize the elimination of existing vaccines.
“With a fairly giant source of vaccines on board in September, this substitution will happen this month. It is vital to minimize waste as much as possible. If we don’t want the vaccine, of course, don’t get it anymore and be able to get it if it’s helpful to others,” said Canada’s director of public health, Dr. Susan S. Theresa Tam, in pronouncing the approval of Moderna’s bivalent vaccine.
“But that means some of them probably won’t be used, but we still want to minimize any potential waste. “
Throughout the pandemic, Canada has had a national vaccine stockpile where it has stockpiled vaccines through Health Canada.
The number of vaccines in the national stockpile has replaced the pandemic, and the stockpile sometimes exceeds the 4 million dose limit promised by the federal government.
As of Sept. 2, there were more than 8 million adult mRNA vaccines in federal facilities, according to a statement from PHAC.
Vaccine waste has been a fear since vaccines began to be rolled out.
At the federal level, on Wednesday, about 8. 9 million vaccines in the federal reserve expired and were phased out, a PHAC spokesman said. This comes with the number of vaccines that have expired after being distributed to provinces and territories.
In addition, 13. 6 million doses of AstraZeneca purchased through Canada “bilaterally and COVAX” were also phased out after they expired this spring. COVAX is the global vaccine exchange initiative.
The vaccines were part of a federal announcement last year to offer 21. 8 million doses of AstraZeneca to countries that need them, Natalie Mohamed, a spokeswoman for Health Canada and PHAC, said in an email.
“However, due to the limited call for vaccines and the distribution and absorption difficulties faced by beneficiary countries, they have not been accepted. Canada continues to work with COVAX to remove barriers to vaccination,” he added.
| CLOCK Ottawa suggested global equity in COVID-19 vaccines:
Richer countries like Canada had pledged to donate some of their surplus vaccines, as well as medical supplies and cash, to low-income countries, basically through COVAX. income countries too close to their expiration date, or Canada donating less requested vaccines.
And now, with the emergence of bivalent vaccines, some proponents argue that vaccine donations have never been enough to meet global demand.
“The solution here has been to produce enough doses of vaccine to meet global demand and get the doses at a fair price,” said Jason Nickerson, Humanitarian Representative in Canada at Médecins Sans Frontières.
On Tuesday, Canada donated more than 50 million surplus vaccines through COVAX and monetary contributions to around 87 million vaccines, according to the government’s website.
Federal officials had pledged to deliver at least two hundred million doses to COVAX by the end of this year.
Nickerson and Banerjee said Canada has done the above in the pandemic to address vaccine equity.
“It’s been frustrating overall for us,” Banerjee said. We have practically reached an impasse and we can all agree that it surely failed when it comes to global vaccine equity. “
Nickerson says that if vaccine donations were needed before the pandemic, high-income countries like Canada have also emphasized pharmaceutical corporations to ramp up production and shift vaccine generation to brands willing to manufacture vaccines in low-income countries.
“The global has not triumphed over the basic challenge here, which is that fitness products like vaccines and treatments, especially a pandemic, want to be noticed more as global public goods if we’re really going to seriously confront this virus and the viruses to come. also in the future,” he said.
Journalist
Stéphanie Dubois is a journalist at CBC News. Share your information with her on stephanie. dubois@cbc. ca
With files through Adam Miller
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