After UK, Canada approves Pfizer’s Corona vaccine

Canada has approved Pfizer’s Corona vaccine for people above 16 years and has opened a possibility of Canadians receiving the vaccine in the next week.

Health Canada, a Canadian health Regulator informed that it has completed a full independent review of the data presented by Pfizer on the vaccine’s safety and effectiveness in preventing the virus.

Canada has become the second country after the United Kingdom to give approval to Pfizer’s vaccine for its citizens.

Health Canada has authorized Pfizer-BioNTech’s #COVID19 vaccine. After a thorough and independent review of the evidence. Health Canada has determined that the vaccine meets its stringent safety, efficacy and quality requirements. https://t.co/mhFcspCpTi#COVIDvaccines pic.twitter.com/q6xkC27z6i

— Health Canada and PHAC (@GovCanHealth) December 9, 2020

Approval to the vaccine:

As per the Health Department of Canada, the citizens must be confident that the review process of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine was rigorous and that the government has strong monitoring systems in place.

The government’s report also added that Britain had given approval to Pfizer’s vaccine earlier on an emergency basis and relied heavily on the analysis by Pfizer.

With this latest approval, Canadians will be receiving the injections of vaccine from a company based in the United States before the Americans do.

Pfizer’s vaccine in Canada:

• According to the PM of Canada, Justin Trudeau, the first doses of Pfizer’s vaccine will be available at 14 Canadian distribution centres next week. At that time inoculations will begin as soon as the regulatory approval has been granted.

• The Canadian government has ordered a total of 6 million doses of Pfizer’s vaccine.

• The first shipment of Pfizer’s vaccine to Canada will be of 2.49 lakh doses and it will come from the plants in Belgium and the United States.

• Two doses of the vaccine will be required to vaccinate each person.

• The Health Regulator of Canada has been waiting for further data from Pfizer before approving the vaccine for children.

Pfizer's vaccine:

The vaccine for the deadly virus has been developed in a joint collaboration between Pfizer Inc., a pharma company based in the United States, and BioNTech, a biotech company in Germany.

On November 9, 2020, they announced that their mRNA-based Corona vaccine candidate, BNT162b2, has shown effectiveness against the virus in the participants of clinical trials.