There he churned out diphtheria treatments for the country's poor. FitzGerald as the Anti-Toxin Laboratories at the University of Toronto - was at the forefront of global vaccine development for decades.įitzGerald started his enterprise in a horse barn, using animals saved from the glue factory. Connaught Laboratories - founded in 1914 by Dr. Did we ever have large-scale vaccine manufacturing capacity in Canada?Ībsolutely. Here are some answers to the questions CBC News has received from viewers, listeners and readers. This incompetency and low level IQ is killing me more than the virus,' Meredith Rodney Mckay said in another comment. 'Why on earth do we not make our own vaccine for Canadians? Even the Russians and Chinese did it. 'Why has Canada fallen short behind our allies and the rest of the world with research and innovation?' 'Why doesn't Canada have its own vaccine? Are we always to rely on the USA for everything?' Tim Williams asked in one comment on our website. CBC News has received hundreds of emails and comments from readers about vaccine production in recent weeks.

Trudeau says he wants an AstraZeneca shot, but a supply crunch could be comingĬanadians have noticed.

After false starts and supply glitches, Canada's immunization campaign makes progress.

The two countries that easily outpaced Canada's vaccination effort have one thing in common: they have homegrown pharmaceutical companies that make their own products at domestic facilities - a bulwark against the vaccine nationalism that has disrupted global supply chains. In the U.K., more than 47 million doses have been deployed and 64 per cent of all Britons have had at least one dose.Ĭanada has fully vaccinated just three per cent of its population - a low figure explained in part by the long interval between shots - while 30 per cent have had at least one shot. Among people over the age of 18, 54 per cent of Americans have had at least one dose. Canada is now performing better than most other countries in the G20 but it's still being outpaced by at least two other countries: the United Kingdom and the United States.Īn estimated 231 million vaccine doses have been administered so far in the U.S. and 37 per cent of the American adult population has been fully vaccinated with two doses.

The nation's vaccination campaign has improved in recent weeks after a slow start marred by production delays and missed deliveries. When the pandemic began, Canada - unlike many other countries - lacked a facility that could be retooled easily to produce the viral vector COVID-19 vaccines from AstraZeneca or Johnson & Johnson, or the mRNA products offered by Pfizer and Moderna.

With the third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic raging on, the demand for vaccine doses continues to outstrip Canada's relatively thin supply.Ĭanada's domestic vaccine manufacturing capability has been hollowed out, leaving the country entirely dependent on foreign sources for the doses that promise an eventual return to normal life.

Who vaccine production