Canada to donate 10 million J&J vaccine doses to developing countries

By Brian Buntz | August 14, 2021

Initially facing a shortage of COVID-19 vaccines, Canada has now vaccinated a greater share of its population than the U.S.

Now, the country is planning on donating 10 million doses to low- and middle-income countries via the COVAX initiative, a global program that aims to distribute vaccines in developing nations.

The country had faced controversy earlier this year for tapping into a supply of vaccines initially set aside for COVAX.

The Africa Center for Disease Control (AfricaCDC) recently announced that it had chosen the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine. The vaccine has the advantage of having straightforward storage requirements and is available as a single dose.

To date, Canada has committed 40 million doses to the COVAX program and additional financial support for the initiative.

In June, Canada rejected some 300,000 doses of U.S.-made Janssen vaccine over potential contamination problems.

About The Author

Brian Buntz

The pharma and biotech editor of WTWH Media, Brian is a veteran journalist with more than 15 years of experience covering an array of life science topics, including clinical trials, drug discovery and development and medical devices. Before coming to WTWH, he served as content director focused on connected devices at Informa. In addition, Brian covered the medical device sector for 10 years at UBM. At Qmed, he overhauled the brand’s news coverage and helped to grow the site’s traffic volume dramatically. He had previously held managing editor roles on two of the company’s medical device technology publications. Connect with him on LinkedIn or email at bbuntz@wtwhmedia.com.