Progress on Donating 200M COVID-19 Vaccines Globally

When it comes to COVID-19, we aren’t safe in Canada until everyone is safe. That is why Canada has committed to delivering 200 million dose equivalents to support the global health response, primarily through COVAX, a worldwide initiative aimed at ensuring equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines. This places Canada as the 6th highest donor of committed doses globally.

About COVAX & Canada’s Contributions

COVAX provides a one-stop location that looks at global need for vaccine. They base vaccine delivery on a nation’s access to vaccine, concerns about the virus, and the ability for countries to vaccinate their citizens. To date, Canada has committed nearly 51 million doses to the most at need through COVAX. This includes doses that Canada has bought directly from suppliers that now can be shared with the most at need through COVAX.

Canada also co-chairs the COVAX Advance Market Commitment Group alongside Ethiopia and Indonesia. This group works with 92 countries across the world to ensure that they get access to the COVID-19 vaccine as soon as possible and equitably. We are working in partnership with these nations to help identify gaps in the vaccine rollout and the health systems to see how we can support them to fill these gaps. With our expertise supporting vaccine delivery for other diseases, Canada is ideally positioned to help support the roll out on vaccines around the world.

Canada also helped buy and deliver 10 million of the total 14.6 million rapid diagnostic tests distributed to date by the Global Fund for use in low and middle-income countries. We have helped to get critical medication and other medical supplies delivered to 22 countries, including steroids that help treat the symptoms of COVID and medical equipment, like oxygen concentrators. Canada also has committed to donating our surplus vaccines. To date, we have donated almost 800,000 surplus vaccines to countries directly.

Over 8.3 million surplus vaccine doses have been delivered so far through the COVAX Facility. Canada has also shared 762,080 AstraZeneca doses through direct, bilateral arrangements with countries in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Surplus vaccine doses donated to regional partners through bilateral agreements had already arrived in Canada, but were subsequently determined by Health Canada to be in excess of our domestic needs. When COVAX was unable to take them, countries were selected to receive these doses based on need and the country’s capacity to deploy them immediately, minimizing wastage and maximizing the public health impact.

You can track Canada’s international vaccine donations here.

#GiveAVax Fund

To date, over 435 million vaccine doses have been shipped globally through the COVID-19 Vaccine Global Access (COVAX) Facility, thanks to partners like UNICEF, but millions more are needed. Canadians are making a difference by helping to ensure that life-saving COVID-19 vaccines reach people in developing countries, humanitarian and conflict situations.

On November 3, 2021, the Government of Canada announced that it will match, dollar for dollar, the full $9,675,928 donated by individual Canadians to the #GiveAVax Fund through UNICEF Canada. The funds will enable UNICEF to cover the per-person cost to transport vaccines to destination countries, keep vaccines viable by protecting the cold chain during the journey and train health care workers to effectively administer the vaccines and safely dispose of needles and waste.

Thanks to the generous contributions of individual Canadians, the full $19,351,857 (total of donations and match) will cover the costs of vaccinating over 3.8 million people around the world.

Other Global Efforts to Respond to COVID-19

Canada has supported the global effort to beat the pandemic from the very beginning. To date, Canada has mobilized more than $2.5 billion in international assistance in response to the COVID‑19 pandemic. This includes:

• over $1.3 billion for the Access to COVID‑19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator; this critical international partnership ensures equitable access to COVID‑19 tests, treatments and vaccines

• over $740 million in funding for humanitarian and development assistance to respond to the urgent needs stemming from the COVID‑19 pandemic

• $541 million to adapt existing funding arrangements with partners to ensure their activities are able to address urgent needs in developing countries resulting from the pandemic