Foreign Affairs Committee on March 21st, 2022

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

Those are the 92 countries that can benefit from COVAX. Is that correct?

[Joshua Tabah]

Yes. They're part of a window called the advance market commitment, which is specifically for low-income and low-middle-income countries, the ones that need the most international support.

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

We can call this a distribution list of COVAX vaccines. Is that correct?

[Joshua Tabah]

Yes, it's the members of participating economies, the AMC 92. They're primarily the ones to whom those doses are being allocated.

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

Is there information on how the distribution happened? Is that information on the public record, or do we need to obtain it through you?

[Joshua Tabah]

It's all publicly available on COVAX's website but also on UNICEF's, which has a very good interactive dashboard through which you can click on a country to see when shipments from COVAX came into the country, and of course it summarizes it at higher levels, as well.

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

Canada sits at that table, I can imagine, since we're a donor country. Do we have an influence on how this distribution needs to happen or do we take the recommendation of the WHO in this case?

[Joshua Tabah]

We do sit and actively participate in many tables, but the allocation framework is at arm's length from donors, so it is entirely needs-based and ensures equity. That's run by the WHO with scientific experts and clear algorithms that countries understand. So, no, we do not influence the allocation of COVAX's doses to their member countries because that's a science- and needs-based decision that's run by that arm's-length committee.

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

So we accept the recommendation and we further our commitment accordingly without having to have any influence over how vaccines are distributed, where they go and how much to pay per vaccine?

[Joshua Tabah]

That's right. We understand the parameters. We helped to negotiate and put them in place for this mechanism. We were a key leader of it from the beginning, so we accept how well the methodology works in terms of allocating the vaccines.

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

When you say “we accept”, who accepts? Is it the Minister of Health or Foreign Affairs or International Development?

[Joshua Tabah]

When we're dealing with in-kind doses, doses that are surplus to Canadian requirements, those are deemed surplus by the Minister of Health of Canada. Then the Minister of International Development delegates to us the delivery of those doses through COVAX to wherever the fair allocation framework that COVAX manages indicates. Obviously COVAX keeps us informed. We want to ensure that our embassies on the ground are aware of incoming Canadian doses. We want to make sure that we take the advantage to ensure that they are put to use immediately and lead to immunizations in our partner countries, so it's a dynamic discussion.

The allocation process itself is at arm's length from donors in other countries like Canada and is managed by the WHO on COVAX's behalf.

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

Next we have Ms. Vandenbeld for five minutes.

Go ahead, please.

[Anita Vandenbeld, Liberal, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

Thank you very much.

I want to thank you for your expertise and for being here today.

Before I get to my questions, I'd like a clarification. When Canada is providing doses, we're not just providing the actual vaccine but are also providing the things that are needed to administer that, like syringes and things like that. Is that correct?

[Joshua Tabah]

When we work with COVAX, as I mentioned, we're one of only four countries to ensure that we pay the full ancillary costs for any donated doses. Kudos to Ireland and a couple of other countries for being partners with us in this, but the intent is that when we donate to COVAX, we can't then create an additional financial burden on COVAX or the others. COVAX has its own agreements to procure the safe disposal of materials, the vaccines and the transport, but we ensure that it has the financing necessary so that Canada's donated doses don't create any additional cost or burden on it.

[Anita Vandenbeld, Liberal, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

Thank you.

We've talked a lot today about the actual doses, the actual vaccines, and that's the COVAX piece, but we also know that as part of the ACT accelerator there are three other pillars, and those include things that are really needed by countries, things like being able to test for COVID. Under the therapeutics pillar, we also have the needs for health systems, as we've heard from other members here, the absorption capacity of health systems and the bottlenecks. That's another pillar. Also there's making sure that there are diagnostics. I'm sorry—there are the diagnostics and the testing and then the therapeutics, which are basically treatment. It's not just a matter of getting vaccines. We also need to be able to treat COVID. We need to be able to test for COVID, and we need to be able to get those vaccines into people's arms through the health care system.

Can you tell us a little bit about what Canada is doing on those other three pillars in addition to getting the actual doses, and where we rank compared to other countries on those three pillars?

[Joshua Tabah]

Thank you.

Chair, you'll have to cut me off because I could speak all day about this.

The ACT accelerator covers all four of those pillars because they're essential. That 70% immunization level, if we reach it, still means that there will be 30% who are not vaccinated. They will rely on “test and treat” strategies, much as we are increasingly doing in North America, given the continued transmission of vaccines. Test and treat is essential for us to identify the evolution of this virus and then to deal with it, in particular, for people more at risk of serious illness. Canada is one of the largest donors to each of those pools.

Health systems are necessary to ensure the delivery of treatments, tests and also vaccines. It's also the legacy piece, which we hope to strengthen, that will persist after this pandemic and position us to better respond to any future threats.

The ACT accelerator took a novel approach by identifying a fair-share burden for every country. They determined what every country should pay, so that the ACT accelerator could do its work. Canada was one of the very first countries to fully meet its burden share for the ACT accelerator and one of the very few to have done so.

Canada is held in very high regard for having met its burden share and ensured a balanced approach across all four pillars. We're one of the only donors to have done so.

[Anita Vandenbeld, Liberal, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

Is it true that Canada is actually first in the world on the therapeutics pillar, the diagnostics pillar and health systems pillar?

[Joshua Tabah]

The needle moves around a little bit as new contributions come in, but we are a top donor. That is sometimes first, but sometimes we bump down to second or third and then we bring in additional investments.

The international system and developing country partners are very well aware of Canada's leadership in providing access to not just vaccines, but also to health systems support, diagnostic support and access to therapies.

On therapies in particular, the development of new antivirals really is the next horizon. We want to make sure that developing countries do have equal access to them just as they do for vaccines now.

[Anita Vandenbeld, Liberal, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

On a different track, I'd also like to ask about the pilot project, which is the South African technology transfer hub.

You mentioned the $15 million. Can you tell me the importance of it and why this pilot is significant in terms of potentially scaling that up in the future?

[Joshua Tabah]

I would point to two elements in particular that are significant. South Africa is already a regional leader in vaccine production. They have outstanding manufacturing capacity and have been working on producing generic vaccines, but there has been no mRNA vaccine production capacity in sub-Saharan Africa or in Africa more generally. This is the first WHO-backed initiative to ensure that there is African production of mRNA vaccine primarily aiming for African consumption.

The second point is that this will be a hub that will have a number of spokes across the continent where additional production will happen. This is where the core of the technology transfer and the scale-up of capability will occur. That will then be reproduced in other production facilities, so we'll get a much bigger bang for this investment than we would have by investing in competing, discrete initiatives.

We're very excited. The South Africans are very excited and, frankly, so are other stakeholders across the African continent.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

Mr. Tabah, thanks very much. We'll have to leave it there.

Thank you, Ms. Vandenbeld.

Colleagues, we're at 12:30. I had suggested that we set aside 15 minutes at the end of the meeting to discuss a number of housekeeping items. If it's okay with everybody I would suggest that we do four more interventions of three minutes each, one per party. That would take us roughly to a quarter to one.

If you're okay with that, we would start out with Mr. Morantz for three minutes.

[Marty Morantz, Conservative, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Actually, Mr. Genuis is going to take my round.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Thank you.

I'll just follow up on my earlier comments and put together a few things. We've been talking a bit about the challenge of vaccine hesitancy and some of the efforts to combat that. That's in a context, bluntly, where two-thirds of Canada's physical contribution to COVAX has been of a kind of vaccine that's not recommended for use in Canada.

To clarify my comments about Sinopharm and Sinovac, according to Dr. Bruce Aylward with the WHO, Sinopharm and Sinovac COVID vaccines have been shipped to 49 countries through COVAX, accounting for nearly 20% of total vaccines shipped through COVAX.

Do you think the problem of vaccine hesitancy in developing countries is exacerbated by sending vaccines that are known to have lower efficacy than other vaccines or that aren't recommended for use in the country that's sending them? Do you think that's contributing to vaccine hesitancy?