Canada, a country of 38 million inhabitants, announced on Tuesday that it had taken an option on 56 million additional doses of the new vaccine against Covid-19 from the American Pfizer.
These pre-orders are in addition to the 20 million doses already reserved by the government, confirmed a spokesperson for the Ministry of Public Services and Supply.
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The day before, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had deemed "
very encouraging
" the announcement made Monday by the Pfizer and BioNTech laboratories of a vaccine "
90% effective
", estimating that it allowed to glimpse "
the light at the end of the tunnel
”.
Canada has also signed agreements with the Americans Novavax, Johnson & Johnson and Moderna, as well as with the French Sanofi, the British GSK and the Swedish-British AstraZeneca.
"
Hold on
"
For its part, the European Union announced on Tuesday that it was preparing to sign for 300 million doses of Pfizer's new Covid-19 vaccine, three times more than the doses pre-ordered at this stage by the States -United.
"
Canada is one of the countries which has been able to conclude the most agreements and which has the most varied portfolio of potential vaccines
," said Mr. Trudeau.
The Prime Minister had however called on Canadians to "
hold on
" and not to lower their guard in the face of the progression of the pandemic, while the country has been beating records of new daily contaminations for several days.
Canada recorded more than 270,000 cases of coronavirus contamination on Tuesday and more than 10,600 deaths.