Canada approves the Moderna vaccine

PanARMENIAN.Net - Canada’s regulator approved Moderna’s vaccine on Wednesday, December 23, a move that will make it easier to inoculate people in the country’s remote and northern regions, The New York Times reports.

Health Canada, which conducted a full review process but on an accelerated schedule, said that the vaccine can be used only on patients 18 and older until further testing on children is completed and analyzed.

The Canadian government had previously decided that the extremely low temperature shipping and storage requirements of the vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech, which is currently being dispensed, made it impractical for use in the country’s vast but sparsely populated Far North. Officials said earlier that the initial doses of the Moderna vaccine would be reserved for that region.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has said that deliveries of the Moderna vaccine would begin within 48 hours of approval and that 168,000 doses would arrive before the end of the month.