OTTAWA At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) was not adequately prepared to respond to the surging demand for essential personal protective equipment (PPE), after failing to address decades-long issues with managing Canada’s stockpile of emergency supplies. This was the conclusion reached by Auditor General Karen Hogan in a report tabled in the House of Commons on Wednesday afternoon examining the federal government’s handling of procuring PPE in the lead up to and through the pandemic. “At the onset of the pandemic, PHAC lacked some of the systems and practices it needed to properly manage and operate the country’s stockpile of emergency equipment… As a result, it was not as prepared as it could have been to respond to the increased demand for personal protective equipment and medical devices that came from the provinces and territories,” read Hogan’s report.
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Canada’s National Emergency Strategic Stockpile was unprepared to deal with the pandemic due to “long-standing unaddressed problems” that had been known for more than a decade when COVID-19 hit, according to the auditor general.
In a report released Wednesday, Auditor General Karen Hogan reviewed the national stockpile and efforts to purchase personal protective equipment and found Canada was ill-prepared to respond to the pandemic.
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“As a result of long-standing unaddressed problems with the systems and practices in place to manage the National Emergency Strategic Stockpile, the Public Health Agency of Canada was not as prepared as it could have been,” she wrote.
INDIA New England News
Ottawa–With the raging second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic having devastating impacts in India, Canada has announced that it is sending up to 25,000 vials of Remdesivir and up to 350 ventilators from its National Emergency Strategic Stockpile to help respond to the critical situation across India.
This support, announced on Wednesday, complements Canada’s work with its international partners to respond to the needs caused by the pandemic and to help save lives.
The Canada government is also providing support through UNICEF’s response to the pandemic in India with the urgent provisioning of 1,450 oxygen concentrators. The funds for these operations come partly from the $230 million contribution to the therapeutics pillar of the Access to Covid-19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator, announced in December 2020.