Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced on Thursday to allot additional 1.1 billion Canadian dollars (about 782 million U.S. dollars) for national medical research against the COVID-19, reports Xinhua.
"The better we understand this virus, its spread and its impact on different people, the better we can fight it and eventually defeat it," Trudeau said at a news conference in Ottawa on Thursday.
The fund is divided into three components: 115 million Canadian dollars (about 81 million U.S. dollars) for research into vaccines and treatments being developed in hospitals and universities; 662 million Canadian dollars (472 million U.S. dollars) for clinical trials in Canada and 350 million Canadian dollars (248 million U.S. dollars) to expand national testing and modelling for COVID-19.
The additional fund is meant to support previous efforts by the Trudeau government to marshal Canada's medical community in the battle against COVID-19.
In mid-March, it provided 275 million Canadian dollars (about 194 million U.S. dollars) for medical research. It announced the creation of a new strategic innovation fund to allot another 192 million Canadian dollars (roughly 136 million U.S. dollars) to specific companies and research institutions working on new drugs and vaccines.
At the news conference, Trudeau also announced the creation of a new COVID-19 immunity task force focused on serology testing to determine if someone has been exposed to the virus already.
The COVID-19 immunity task force will include a series of Canada's top doctors and will focus on blood testing to track and understand immunity to the novel coronavirus.
Trudeau said testing is key to the fight against COVID-19 and 20,000 tests are carried out in Canada every day. "Testing must increase even further before we can reopen and restart our normal activities as a country."
"We know it may be a long while before a vaccine. There are discussions around treatments for COVID-19 that might work as well as a vaccine," he said.
