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OTTAWA, Feb 2 (Reuters) - Canada, under pressure over the
slow pace of inoculations against COVID-19, has signed its first
deal to allow a foreign vaccine to be manufactured domestically,
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Tuesday.
Trudeau said the Novavax Inc vaccine - still
awaiting approval from Canadian regulators - would be produced
in a new government facility in Montreal that is due to be
finished later this year.
"This is a major step forward to get vaccines made in
Canada, for Canadians. ... We need as much domestic capacity for
vaccine production as possible," he told reporters. Canada has a
deal to buy 52 million doses of the Novavax vaccine.
Last week Novavax submitted its candidate to Canadian
regulators after the U.S.-based company announced it was 89%
effective in a British trial. Canada is also examining vaccines
from Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca PLC
.
Canada's inoculation campaign involves doses from Pfizer
Inc/BioNTech SE and Moderna Inc,
which have temporarily cut supplies as a result of manufacturing
problems. This angered some of Canada's main provinces, which
are calling on Trudeau to get tougher with the companies.
Canada has so far reported a total of 783,589 cases and
20,136 deaths as a second wave of the disease sweeps the
country.
(Reporting by David Ljunggren and Steve Scherer; editing by
Jonathan Oatis)
