They are also in talks to test a vaccine modified to protect specifically against the highly transmissible new variant first found in South Africa.

In theory, lipids should be easy to produce on a large scale, but it gets complicated when the goal is to produce billions of new COVID-19 vaccines for the world.

States have recently thrown open vaccinations to many of the nation's 54 million senior citizens with the blessing of U.S. President Donald Trump's administration.

Germany was considering on Monday whether to allow a delay in administering the second dose to make scarce supplies go further after a similar move by Britain last week.

Its addition allows countries to expedite their own regulatory approval process for the vaccine.

The coronavirus variant, detected mainly in London and the southeast of England in recent weeks, has sparked concern worldwide.

The country has now seen 474,820 confirmed cases of COVID-19 since the pandemic began. 

Canada is preparing to receive an initial batch of 30,000 of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines.

The Pfizer vaccine will land on Canadian soil next week, but the idea of being injected by a drug developed in less than a year is still nerve-racking to many.

Since the virus was first detected, it has claimed 12,983 lives in Canada.