At least 32 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines have been wasted or are about to be wasted in the country. A loss representing $680 million, according to the compilation made by our Bureau of Investigation.

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In the vast majority of cases, these are expired doses that could not be used in time.

The federal government alone disposed of 22.5 million expired doses, which it kept in its central stockpile.

The provinces, for their part, threw away at least 5.3 million doses, including 1.13 million by Quebec. These are partial data, since some provinces, such as Ontario, refused to disclose their losses.

To this table must be added 4.5 million doses about to expire, rendered overwhelmed by the arrival this fall of the new bivalent vaccine, effective against the Omicron variant.

Massive orders

For the virologist and professor of the University of Quebec in Montreal (UQAM) Benoît Barbeau, these significant losses are the consequence of the massive orders of vaccines placed by Ottawa.

“The government over-ordered [vaccines], especially after the first and second doses were administered,” he explains.

According to him, we knew then that the virus was likely to mutate and that new versions of the vaccines would be available, such as the bivalent vaccine launched this fall.

"There was then an adjustment [in the orders] that would have been necessary to make," he says.

Recall that at the end of 2020, the Trudeau government had placed purchase options for 358 million doses of vaccine, or 9.5 doses per Canadian.

Canada did not buy all of these doses, but it was the country in the world that took the most vaccine purchase options per capita.

Exceptional

Professor Barbeau nevertheless points out that the COVID-19 pandemic remains an exceptional event.

“It is better, very unfortunately, in these moments, to go in this direction [by buying too many vaccines] than in the other direction”, he affirms.

However, the fact remains that the costs of these vaccine losses will be major. According to our estimate, the bill will reach at least $680 million.

This figure is calculated from the number of doses thrown away and the unit price per dose paid by Ottawa, obtained from various sources by Le Journal last spring.

When asked about this, Health Canada refused to disclose the price paid per dose to major international manufacturers, citing the fact that it is “confidential commercial information”.

Destroyed vaccines

Sources: Public Health Agency of Canada, Ministries of Health of Quebec and British Columbia, Global News. Data from other provinces are not available.

Avoidable losses with donations abroad

It is clear to Doctors Without Borders and to the opposition to the Commons that some of this waste of vaccines could have been avoided.

The solution would have been to send more doses and more quickly to disadvantaged countries that were in dire need of vaccines when they became available.

"The Trudeau government has spoken out of both sides of its mouth on this issue," said Adam Houston, in charge of advocacy and medical policy at Doctors Without Borders Canada.

At the start of the pandemic, in the summer of 2020, Justin Trudeau presented himself as an ardent defender of the international vaccine exchange mechanism, called COVAX.

Well stocked reserves

However, Houston recalls, it took a year, in July 2021, when Ottawa had well-stocked supplies, enough to administer the vaccination twice to every Canadian, to start sending doses overseas. .

And again, these were AstraZeneca vaccines that were about to expire and no longer wanted in Canada because of their side effects.

A large number of these vaccines, 13.6 million doses in total, had to be destroyed for lack of takers abroad.

For Mr. Houston, management focused on sending vaccines abroad faster and more efficiently could have reduced the waste that occurred in Canada.

Unthinkable

The Conservative Party in Ottawa shares this point of view.

"It is unthinkable that so many vaccines against COVID-19 that could have benefited from other countries with lower vaccination rates should have been thrown away," said MP Pierre Paul-Hus, the party's political lieutenant for Quebec. .

In his opinion, this is “another example of the poor planning and management of our federal government”.