Health Canada to approve Moderna’s COVID vaccine targeting Omicron

Federal health officials are scheduled to make an announcement Thursday on the ongoing fight against COVID-19 as provincial health systems anticipate the approval of a vaccine that targets the Omicron variant of the virus.

Vaccines currently available in Canada target only the original strain of COVID-19.

Health Canada is reviewing new shots called bivalent vaccines. They are designed to recognize specific mutations in the spike protein of the Omicron BA.1 subvariant.

Moderna’s bivalent vaccine was approved two weeks ago in the United Kingdom, while the U.S. approved Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech’s Omicron-fighting shots earlier this week.

Canada has already purchased 12 million doses of Moderna’s version of the Omicron vaccine.