OTTAWA — Health Canada announced the Pfizer, Moderna and Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccines have been given new names.
New brand names for the vaccines have been approved at the request of the drug companies.
The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine has now been dubbed Comirnaty, which the company says represents a combination of the terms COVID-19, mRNA, community, and immunity.
The Moderna vaccine will go by SpikeVax and the AstraZeneca vaccine will be named Vaxzevria.
Health Canada points out the vaccines themselves are not changing — only the names are.
The new names are already being used for promotional purposes in the EU and the United States.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2021.
The Canadian Press
