Health Canada has approved Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine for use in Canada, clearing the way for thousands of doses to arrive by month’s end.

The approval comes exactly two weeks after Health Canada approved the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine on Dec. 9, which is already being administered in parts of the country – including Kamloops – with a focus on healthcare workers.

“The data provided supports favourably the efficacy of the Moderna COVID-19 Vaccine as well as its safety,” Health Canada said in a notice authorizing use of the vaccine for people over the age of 18.”

“There were no important safety issues identified and no life-threatening adverse events (AEs) or deaths related to the vaccine.”

The American-based Moderna anticipates it will start shipping the vaccine to Canada within the next 48 hours. Up to 168,000 doses are set to arrive by the end of December, and two million by the end of March.

In all, Canada is to get 40 million doses of the Moderna vaccine next year, enough to vaccinate 20 million people, or about two-thirds of the Canadian adult population. It is not yet recommended for use on children as tests on adolescents only began in December and tests on children younger than 12 won’t begin until next year.

Health Canada says Moderna will have to continue to provide information on the safety of the vaccine to the regulator.

Long-term care workers expected to be the priority in B.C.

The approval of the Moderna means vaccinations can now begin in northern, remote and Indigenous communities, which haven’t seen any doses of the Pfizer vaccine owing to its stringent storage requirements at temperatures below -70 C.

By contract, Moderna’s vaccine can be stored at regular freezer temperatures.

Its unclear how many doses of the vaccine British Columbia will get at this time, but the vaccine doses are likely to be used to vaccinate seniors who live in long-term care homes.

“I think it’s great news we’re going to get some Moderna vaccine soon as well, for Indigenous people here in B.C. as well as for our long-term care homes,” Provincial Health Officer, Dr. Bonnie Henry said last week. “The Moderna vaccine has less stringent restrictions and it can be moved around more easily at fridge temperatures.”

“As soon [it] is available, we’ll be looking at how we can move it out to long-term care homes rapidly.”

Like the Pfizer vaccine, it too requires two doses about a month apart for full protection. Both vaccines use mRNA technology, and contain the genetic coding for the virus’s spike protein which teaches a human body’s immune system to recognize the spike protein to prevent infection against COVID-19.

Health officials in B.C. say the plan to immunize 400,000 people against COVID-19 by March 2021, and Henry previously said that she expects to have everyone in the province who wants a COVID-19 vaccine to be able get it by Sept. 2021.