Health Canada’s chief medical adviser says her department is on track to approve a second vaccine for COVID-19 very soon.

Dr. Supriya Sharma says it “looks positive” for the vaccine from U.S. biotech firm Moderna, but there are still some outstanding manufacturing documents needed before a decision can be made.

Mark Lievonen is co-chair of Canada’s COVID -9 Vaccine Task Force.

He told Zoomer Radio’s Fight Back with guest host Jane Brown about the other vaccine candidates and where they are at in the process.

“They include the Janssen from Johnson & Johnson and the AstraZeneca which are both viral vector vaccines. They carry the protein,” Lievonen explained, “And there are also vaccines, what we call protein sub-units. That would be the Novavax, the Sanofi PSK, which are going to enter clinical trials a little bit later. And following that is the Canadian one, which is Medicago, a Quebec based company that uses virus like particles grown in tobacco plants.”

The first doses of the COVID-19 Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine were given Monday to health care workers in Toronto at the University Health Network.

Long-term care workers from an Ottawa nursing home will be next, as that city rolls out its vaccination program Tuesday.

A long-term care resident in Quebec City, 89 year old Gisele Levesque, became the first Canadian to be vaccinated against COVID-19, just before personal support worker Anita Quidangen was vaccinated in Toronto.