Canada to Receive Smallpox Vaccine Next Month

Canadian authorities are set to begin receiving their order for a national smallpox vaccine stockpile in December, the Ottawa Citizen reported today (see GSN, Sept. 9).

Canadian company Aventis Pasteur is scheduled to deliver 10 million doses of the vaccine at a cost of $6.6 million. Almost $30 million will be spent over the next two years on associated vaccine costs, including storage and immunization equipment. The smallpox stockpiles will be included in the National Emergency Services Stockpile of field medical equipment, medicines and emergency supplies by early spring of 2004. The exact locations of the smallpox vaccine stockpiles is not being released.

“The information is considered confidential. There’ll be one stockpile in the east and one in the west,” said Catherine Saunders, a spokeswoman for Health Canada (Ian MacLeod, Ottawa Citizen, Nov. 18).

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