(Reuters) – Moderna Inc. has delayed the shipment of 590,400 doses of its COVID-19 vaccine that were due to arrive in Canada this weekend, the federal recruitment minister said on Thursday.
Moderna informed Canadian officials that the delay was due to a “delay in its quality assurance process,” said Anita Anand, adding that the company assured that the remaining doses would be shipped as maximum on Thursday next week.
Canada is expected to receive 846,000 doses of Moderna this week, of which 255,600 were delivered on Wednesday, a government source told Reuters.
“Once Moderna’s final quality assurance process is complete, the doses will be released for shipment.”
Anand said the U.S. drug maker assured that the problem was a “minor hiccup” and would not affect the shipment of 855,600 doses set for the week of April 5th.
To date, Canada has received 5.9 million doses of vaccines and expects to obtain 3.2 million next week, including those from Pfizer Inc., AstraZeneca Plc of the United States and the rescheduled Modern shipment.
The country is facing a third potential wave of infections, as the most transmissible variant of the B.1.1.7 virus discovered in the UK causes outbreaks at some hot spots.
It currently has 38,922 active cases and has reported 5,202 new cases as of March 25 (bit.ly/3tPN81C)
Report by Steve Scherer in Ottawa and Anirudh Saligram in Bengaluru, Sherry Jacob-Phillips Edition