Mr. Speaker, the response is as follows: a) The World Health Organization has recognized Canada as a leader in pandemic preparedness and one of the first countries in the world to put in place a domestic contract for pandemic influenza vaccine production.
Since 2001, the Government of Canada has had a 10-year contract in place with ID Biomedical, now GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) Biologicals, to assure a state of pandemic readiness in case of an influenza pandemic and to supply Canada with pandemic influenza vaccine on a priority basis. Under this contract, GSK is required to develop and maintain a production capacity in Canada of a minimum of eight million doses of pandemic vaccine per month for four months, enough to immunize all Canadians.
The H1N1 pandemic vaccines were produced at GSK’s manufacturing facility in Ste-Foy, Quebec. GSK supplied Canada with enough doses of the pandemic vaccine to meet domestic requirements.
b) Under the vaccine contract, GSK is required to distribute pandemic vaccine from its manufacturing site to specified depots as identified by provinces and territories.