Health Canada has approved the COVID-19 vaccine from biopharmaceutical company Moderna (NASDAQ:MRNA)
Moderna is the second Covid-19 vaccine to be approved by Health Canada after regulators gave approval to the Pfizer-BioNtech inoculation on December 9. Moderna anticipates starting shipments to Canada on December 26.
Health Canada’s Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Supriya Sharma, said at a news conference held in Ottawa that the vaccine from Moderna is safe for widespread use. A total of 168,000 doses of Moderna’s vaccine will be delivered to Canada by the end of December, with additional doses coming early next year.
The Moderna approval comes amid a surge in new COVID-19 cases across Canada, with a record number of infections in Quebec as Ontario prepares for a provincewide lockdown that starts on Boxing Day.
Quebec reported 2,247 new infections — one day after it posted 2,183 new cases, which was a record at that time. Sharma indicated that the Moderna inoculation will likely be distributed to more remote communities across Canada. That is because Moderna’s vaccine does not require the same level of extreme-cold storage as Pfizer’s inoculation.
Officials in Ottawa have said that the first doses of Moderna’s vaccine will be prioritized for frontline healthcare workers and residents and workers in long-term care facilities, as well as adults in remote Indigenous communities, and seniors over the age of 80.