Records tabled in the House of Commons Tuesday show the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) wasted $1.2 billion on unused COVID-19 vaccines.
It was the highest figure divulged to date, according to Blacklock’s’ Reporter.
“It did involve significant financial costs,” said the public accounts records.
“While largely now passed, there is a diminishing account of pandemic legacy costs. The government has recorded $1.2 billion in 2024 for the write down by the Public Health Agency of expired Covid-19 vaccines and therapeutics.”
Auditors two years ago had put vaccine wastage at “about $1 billion.” The Auditor General in a 2022 report Covid-19 Vaccines estimated taxpayers spent $5 billion on vaccines, about $30 per dose, under contracts that have never been made public.
Federal managers from the onset of the pandemic signed contracts with seven manufacturers at undisclosed prices: AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson, Medicago, Moderna, Novavax, Pfizer and Sanofi.
“The Public Health Agency was unsuccessful in its efforts to minimize vaccine wastage,” wrote auditors.
“The Agency had a surplus of vaccine doses resulting from the obligation to buy doses as specified in advance purchase agreements.”
The Government of Canada bought 169 million doses. Of those 124.9 million were delivered and 84.1 million were used to vaccinate Canadians.
“The Public Health Agency ended up with a large surplus of doses,” wrote auditors.
“This led to vaccine wastage because some of the doses expired before they could be used or donated.”
Auditor General Karen Hogan said at the time she could not fault the contracting.
“There was a global rush to develop a vaccine,” said Hogan.
“No one knew which vaccine companies would develop viable vaccines.”
However Hogan did fault regulators for poor practices in tracking inventory and monitoring expiry dates.
“The shelf life remaining on some of the vaccines at times caused some difficulties,” she said.
“Using unclassified and public documentation we estimated those doses to be worth about $1 billion,” wrote auditors.
“The majority of those doses will expire.”
PHAC in an earlier report to the Commons Public Accounts Committee said 25.6 million vaccines were thrown out as date expired. Another 41.5 million vaccines were “deemed surplus” and donated to numerous countries.
Vaccine donations went to Angola, Argentina, Bangladesh, Barbados, Burkina Faso, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Equatorial Guinea, Egypt, Ghana, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, Kenya, Liberia, Madagascar, Mali, Mauritania, Mexico, Mozambique, Nepal, Nicaragua, Niger, Nigeria, Peru, Rwanda, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Tanzania, Trinidad and Tobago, Uganda, Uzbekistan, Vietnam, Yemen and Zambia, said PHAC.