Health Minister Tyler Shandro. (Government of Alberta)

By David Opinko

Production issue with Pfizer COVID vaccine to slow down Alberta schedule

Jan 15, 2021 | 3:58 PM

LETHBRIDGE, AB – The pace at which Albertans are getting immunized against COVID-19 will be reduced over the coming weeks.

Pfizer-BioNTech announced Friday that it was experiencing production issues at its European facility in Belgium and will now undergo upgrades to ramp up its production scale from 1.3-billion doses to around 2-billion.

READ MORE: Pfizer-BioNTech cutting back vaccine deliveries to Canada due to production issues

Alberta Health Minister Tyler Shandro says this will result in all countries receiving doses from this facility, which includes Canada, getting fewer doses than expected in the short term.

“Pfizer believes that, by the end of March, they will be able to restore supply so that Alberta can be on track for the total committed doses for Q1.”

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Next week, Shandro reports that the country expects to receive about 20 per cent fewer doses. As well, the number of trays holding vaccine doses will be reduced by 80 per cent.

In the following two weeks, Canada will get about half of the expected doses.

“We are waiting for more information from the federal government about how this will affect Alberta’s allocation of vaccine for the coming weeks.”

“This is out of control, but it will impact Alberta’s immunization schedule.”

Shandro says it will take longer to complete immunization for Albertans in the Phase 1A grouping, which includes several classes of healthcare workers, first responders, and residents of long-term care and designated supportive living facilities.

The health minister hoped to be able to announce in the next few days when people in Phase 1B would become eligible for immunization, “but that is now in question.”

As of the end of January 14, 74,110 doses of COVID-19 had been administered in Alberta with a rate of 1,676 doses per 100,000 population.