Manitoba is pausing the booking of new COVID-19 vaccine appointments after Pfizer announced a slowdown to Canada of vaccine shipments.

Dr Joss Reimer, Manitoba’s medical lead on the COVID-19 vaccine taskforce and Medical Officer of Health for Manitoba Health and Seniors Care took to social media to make the announcement on Friday afternoon, January 15, 2021.

“We are pausing new vaccine appointments due to Pfizer supply disruptions announced today. @MBGov’s current inventory will be used to complete previously-scheduled first and second dose appointments,” said Reimer via twitter.

We are pausing new vaccine appointments due to Pfizer supply disruptions announced today. @MBGov’s current inventory will be used to complete previously-scheduled first and second dose appointments. We anticipated these issues and have contingency plans in place. (1/3)

— Dr. Joss Reimer (@jossreimer) January 15, 2021

The federal government said earlier in the day that Pfizer expected shipments of their vaccine to drop by about 50% over the next four weeks as they ramp up production in their Belgium manufacturing facility.

Reimer said that the vaccine taskforce had anticipated possible issues with supply and have contingencies in place. She said that health who have already booked an appointment should still attend their appointments.

“Our immunization plan is to safely and responsibly vaccinate as many Manitobans as possible with the doses we’ve been given.”

As of Friday, the province has injected 13,539 doses of vaccine in total (11,401 first doses and 2,138 second doses).

Manitoba was on track to receive 9,360 doses of the Pfizer vaccine next week along with 7,400 doses of the Moderna vaccine but have not heard any details from officials at the federal level about supply disruptions.

© News4.ca 2021