Newfoundland and Labrador is expecting 2,400 doses of the second vaccine to be approved by Health Canada during the week of Dec. 28.
Health Canada announced its approval of the Moderna mRNA vaccine Wednesday.
It had already approved one developed by a Pfizer/BioNTech partnership two weeks ago. Almost 3,900 doses of that vaccine are already in the province and going into the arms of frontline health-care workers.
The provincial Department of Health expected that by the end of the day Wednesday, about 1,900 workers would have received their first dose.
Last week, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Moderna has promised up to 168,000 doses of its vaccine by the end of December once it’s approved.
“These doses are part of the guaranteed 40 million doses we have secured and deliveries could begin within 48 hours of regulatory approval,” he told reporters.
The news is especially good for rural communities, as the Massachusetts-based Moderna product does not have to be stored at the super cold temperature of -70 C like the Pfizer vaccine.
“That is a vaccine that is easier to distribute and would certainly be ideal for more rural and isolated communities,” Newfoundland and Labrador Health Minister John Haggie said last week.
The Department of Health confirmed Wednesday that the shipments of the Moderna vaccine will be prioritized for residents in Labrador’s remote and isolated Indigenous communities.
An additional 2,400 doses are expected during the week of Jan. 11.
Indigenous populations must be prioritized under federal guidelines.
"We should all be encouraged by this approval and the ongoing arrival over the coming weeks of more COVID-19 vaccines,” Haggie said in a statement Wednesday. “Thank you to our Public Health officials throughout the province for facilitating a smooth vaccination roll-out.”
For now, all injections of the Pfizer vaccine have to administered at point of arrival, namely the Health Sciences Centre in St. John’s.
Both vaccines require two shots be given a few weeks apart, and are considered to be about 95 per cent effective.
Peter Jackson is a Local Journalism Initiative reporter covering health in St. John’s.
