In his regular speech on the 26th local time, Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau said in response to the EU’s readiness to strengthen the export control of the coronavirus vaccine, “This issue is indeed very disturbing.
We are communicating with partners in Europe to ensure that Canada’s contracts [with Pfizer] are respected.”
Canada’s imports of coronavirus vaccine mainly come from Pfizer.
Pfizer’s pharmaceutical factory in Belgium has suspended exports as the European Union prepares to tighten its control over the export of coronavirus vaccines, which means that Pfizer will cut off the supply of vaccines exported to Canada from this week.
After the news came out, Trudeau’s cabinet was under great pressure from the opposition party.
Trudeau said that by April this year, Canada is still expected to receive a total of 4 million doses of vaccine from Pfizer and 2 million doses from Modena, which is enough for more than 2 million people to complete the whole vaccination of at least two doses.
Western countries are currently competing for a coronavirus vaccine.
Including Pfizer, which has two pharmaceutical companies in the United States, and Modner is also an American company.
In December 2020, after then-US President Trump ordered restrictions on vaccine exports, the competition for vaccines in Western countries intensified.
The European Union had ordered 300 million doses of coronavirus vaccine from AstraZeneca, a company in the United Kingdom, but the company failed to deliver it in time. Some EU leaders accused the company of prioritizing vaccines to countries outside the EU at higher prices.
The EU will therefore strengthen the “export audit mechanism” and force companies such as Pfizer and AstraZeneca to report their vaccine exports to the EU.
