Pfizer cancels Covid-19 vaccine delivery to Canada for next week

He said Canada will be receiving only 82 per cent of the expected vaccine doses' delivery this week as well.

A public statement was issued by Pfizer on Tuesday saying that the company is looking to ramp up vaccine production and deliver up to two billion doses over 2021.

"To accomplish this, certain modifications of production processes will be required," the company said.

"Pfizer is scaling up manufacturing operations in our Puurs, Belgium manufacturing facility to increase  dose  availability and output and, as a result, there will be a temporary impact on some shipments until mid-February in order to quickly enable increased production volumes afterwards," it said adding that the company anticipates to balanced the supply disruptions and be able to keep its delivery schedule for the first quarter of the year.

During his daily briefings on Wednesday, Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said that although deliveries of Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines to Canada would be disrupted for a short-term, he is confident the country is on track to vaccinate every Canadian who wants to be vaccinated by September.

"This situation with the Pfizer delay is temporary. Our vaccination objectives for the first quarter of the year, January to March, are not changing," Trudeau said.

"The total number of doses committed to us is still the same," he said, adding that "every Canadian" who wants to be vaccinated will get the shot "by September."

(Reporting by Asha Bajaj)