Canada to discard 13.6M AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine doses

Ottawa: Canada will toss out around 13.6 million doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccines since it couldn't find any takers, either in or outside country. 

In 2020, Canada inked an agreement with AstraZeneca in a bid to get 20 million doses of its vaccine, while about 2.3 million Canadians have got at least one jab. 

Following fears in the spring of 2021 about ‘uncommon yet possibly deadly blood clots’ from AstraZeneca, the nation focused on utilizing its adequate supplies of the mRNA vaccines from Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna. 

In July 2021, the maple country promised to donate the remaining of its procured supply, around 17.7 million portions. However, yesterday, officials said that despite efforts to meet that pledge, 13.6 million doses have expired and will have to be thrown out.

"Due to limited demand for the vaccine and recipient country challenges with distribution and absorption, they were not accepted?" the statement said.

In all, Canada donated 8.9 million doses of AstraZeneca vaccine—4.8 millon doses from its main supply and 4.1 million doses that it bought from the COVAX vaccine-sharing programme.

Around 85% of Canadians are thought of as completely immunized, contrasted and 61% of the total population, and only 16% of people in poor nations. 

A year ago, Canada said it would donate almost 18 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine to lower-income countries.

As of June 2022, almost nine million doses had been delivered to 21 different nations.

But Health Canada says there is limited demand for the AstraZeneca vaccine and it hasn't been able to find more takers for the doses available.

Moreover, Canada also has donated 6.1 million doses of Moderna's vaccine out of 10 million doses promised for donation, but has thrown out another 1.2 million doses of that vaccine.