The federal government has added $36.4 million to a program designed to support people who have been seriously injured or died from vaccines since late 2020.
The program was announced shortly after COVID-19 shots first became available to the public and provides financial compensation to people who were negatively affected by Health Canada-approved vaccines.
The Liberals allocated $75 million for the first five years of the program. To date, a private company called OXARO has received $56.2 million from Ottawa to run the program and pay valid claims originating outside of Quebec.
As of December, the company has paid $11.2 million in compensation.
Quebec has had its own vaccine injury compensation program since 1985 and received $7.75 million when the federal program was launched.
The Liberal government set aside another $36 million for OXARO and Quebec to cover the next two years of the program as part of the federal budget tabled in the House of Commons last week.
The Public Health Agency of Canada says it contracted the work to OXARO to ensure the fairness of the claims process.
“OXARO operates independently and at arm’s length from PHAC,” a department spokesperson said in a statement.
“This means that PHAC is not involved in the execution of the program, including the evaluation of claims or appeals of claims.”
The cost of the program depends on how many people apply for compensation, the spokesperson said.
As of December, OXARO has received 2,233 claims and approved 138 of them.
Available statistics do not specify which vaccines were involved.
The program was launched during the COVID-19 pandemic, but covers injuries and deaths associated with approved vaccines for any disease, as long as they were administered after December 8, 2020.
At the time, the department stressed that a serious adverse reaction to a vaccine is extremely rare (affecting less than one in a million people), but that the government has a duty to help if a reaction occurs.
A little less than a year later, Ottawa made the COVID-19 vaccine mandatory to travel by plane or train, or to work in the federal public service.
To be eligible to receive compensation, the patient or their beneficiary must be able to demonstrate that they suffered a serious, life-threatening, or life-altering injury that resulted in a persistent or significant disability, incapacity, birth defect, or death.
More than 105 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines have been administered since Dec. 14, 2020, and 0.01 per cent caused serious adverse events, Health Canada data shows.
Of the 488 deaths reported after people were vaccinated against COVID-19, four were directly related to the vaccine, Health Canada’s most recent report indicates.
Quebec saw an increase in claims to its vaccine injury compensation program during the pandemic, from one claim in 2020 to 98 in 2021 and 2022.
Only three of those cases had been approved for compensation as of March 2023.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 24, 2024.