Canada's Moderna shipment of nearly 600,000 doses delayed into next week

Moderna tells us the doses will be shipped to Canada no later than Thursday of next week. The supplier has also informed us that this backlog is temporary'

Nationalpost.com
March 26, 2021

The planned shipment of 846,000 doses of Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine to Canada this week will come up short.

The government was expecting the shipment this week as part of the company’s commitment to deliver two million doses of the vaccine in the first quarter. Earlier this week, the company delivered part of that shipment, 255,600 doses, and was expected to complete the shipment on Saturday, but that will now be delayed into next week.

Canada's Moderna shipment of nearly 600,000 doses delayed into next week
Close sticky video
In a statement, Procurement Minister Anita Anand confirmed Moderna had broke the bad news on Thursday afternoon.

“I spoke with executives from Moderna who informed us that, due to a backlog in its quality assurance process, the 590,400 doses that were due to arrive in Canada this weekend have been delayed by a few days,” she said.

Anand said the vaccines have been manufactured, but the quality assurance work has to be completed before the shipment is sent.

“Moderna tells us the doses will be shipped to Canada no later than Thursday of next week. The supplier has also informed us that this backlog is temporary and will not affect the next scheduled delivery,” Anand said.

Moderna was scheduled to deliver two million doses of its vaccine by March 31. Anand said the delayed doses combined with Pfizer’s shipment and newly acquired doses from AstraZeneca mean Canada will have 3.2 million doses next week.

Anand said Moderna has assured her that the issue is a minor hiccup that won’t impact the next shipment of 855,600 doses set for the week of April 5.

Moderna and Pfizer, which are currently the backbone of Canada’s vaccine effort, are both manufactured in Europe. The European Union has been threatening export restrictions over vaccine shipments, as countries there have struggled with their vaccination efforts.

Anand and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau have both said they have been assured by European officials that Canada is not the bloc’s target with export restrictions.

EU officials have mostly complained about AstraZeneca, which has missed targets for supplying European countries but has manufactured millions of doses in Britain. The U.K. is one of the leading nations in the world in its vaccine rollout.

Speaking on background, government officials said they’re confident the Moderna delay is not related to those export restrictions.