- Canada is the only G7 country to receive vaccines with early deliveries of the COVAX program.
- COVAX targets poorer countries and most rich countries purchase vaccines separately.
- Canada has had a rocky rollout, and critics have responded by saying that vaccinating Canadians is its ‘top priority’.
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Canada is not withdrawing after criticism for taking some of the vaccines from the COVAX program, which distributes vaccines to poorer countries.
COVAX is pooling funding from richer countries to distribute vaccines around the world, including to poorer countries, many of which have not been able to vaccinate anyone yet.
The plan for the first round of distribution of these vaccines was announced Wednesday, including the allocation from Canada.
COVAX plans to deliver more than 330 million doses of AstraZeneca / Oxford and Pfizer vaccines in the first half of 2021.
The vaccines will be distributed among 145 countries, including 92 low- and middle-income countries. That number of doses is enough to cover about 3.3% of the population in those countries.
On Friday, Canada had already vaccinated about 2.7% of its population, according to figures from Our World in Data.
That pace is well ahead of most COVAX receivers, but lags behind countries of comparable national wealth to Canada, including the US, UK and most of the EU.
COVAX ultimately aims to provide doses to at least 20% of the population in recipient countries, but due to supply issues, it will take many months to deliver on that promise, and wealthier countries are virtually guaranteed to reach that level much sooner.
Other richer countries, such as New Zealand, are also receiving vaccines from COVAX. But Canada is the only G7 member to receive a vaccine from COVAX in this first round of vaccine distribution.
Canada is expected to receive a total of 1.9 million doses of the AstraZeneca / Oxford vaccine.
In a conversation with the Canadian network CBC News on Wednesday, Karina Gould, Canada’s Minister of International Development, defended the move.
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She said Canada contributed $ 440 million to COVAX, and half of that was for buying doses for Canadians. The other half of the money was for low- and middle-income countries, she said.
“This was part of the strategy from the start,” she said. “Our top priority is to ensure that Canadians have access to vaccines.”
The move comes after concerns have been raised about “vaccine nationalism”, with richer countries hoarding the vaccines while poorer countries rush to get their own supplies.
On Tuesday, President Joe Biden’s administration said the US would join COVAX, although the magnitude of their contribution was unclear.
Oxfam criticized Canada’s decision to use early COVAX vaccines, which it said was prompted by political pressure at home. Canada has had problems accessing vaccines quickly, despite ordering 40 million doses of the Moderna vaccine and the 76 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine.
Dr. Jason Nickerson, humanitarian affairs adviser at Doctors Without Borders, told Yahoo! on Wednesday when Canada “jumped the line”.
He said the effect of his decision is to get low-risk people in Canada to get vaccines before high-risk people elsewhere, a situation he called “downright indefensible”.