Critical Canada: It's being supplied with COVAX vaccines, money for poor countries.

Former special envoy for HIV/ United Nations AIDS (OKB) in Africa, Stephen Lewis, in a program on Canada's CTV channel, praised developments regarding the COVAX vaccine program, where Canada is also a partner.

According to the Anadolu Agency, he recalled that COVAX is a Canadian-funded unit and other partners to distribute vaccines in poor countries that cannot compete with rich countries.

Lewis said Canada uses this programme in its behalf, adding that it is wrong and that Canada is the first country to do so.

“It's morally wrong for Canada to receive 1.9 million vaccines from this programme” and Lewis stressed.

He said that Canada, since February 5th, has vaccinated over 884 thousand people, or 2.3 percent, with attention that this figure is higher than applied on the continent of Africa, which has 37 times as many as Canada.

For COVAX, which was founded in July last year, Canada invested $40m.

The government had announced that half of the money would be spent to provide 15 million doses of vaccines for Canadians, while the other half would be used to buy needed vaccines from 92 developing countries, including Afghanistan, Mali and Haiti.

The federal government had also announced that the country by the end of June through COVAX will receive at least 1.9 million doses from the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine.

Prime Minister Justrin Trudeau has defended the decision and said Canada will continue with efforts to contribute to the programme, as well as the vaccine insurance for low income countries.