OTTAWA (Reuters) – Canada launched on Friday a real-time review of data from AstraZeneca and Oxford University’s potential COVID-19 vaccine, the latest nation to take steps to speed up the approval process as the battle against the pandemic intensifies.
Canada’s health ministry said it received on Thursday its first submission for authorisation for the vaccine, just weeks after Health Minister Patty Hajdu signed an order in September allowing companies to submit safety and efficacy data and information as they become available.
The aim of a rolling review is to accelerate the process.
The news comes a day after Europe’s health regulator also started a rolling review of the first batch of data for the AstraZeneca vaccine.
The Canadian ministry will not make a decision on whether to authorise this or any other vaccine until it has received the necessary evidence to support its safety, efficacy and quality, it said.
(Reporting by Steve Scherer in Ottawa; Writing by Josephine Mason in London; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama nd Mark Potter)
