Malaysia to commence administering Sinovac's COVID-19 vaccine on Thursday
16 March, 2021
Malaysia will start to manage Sinovac's COVID-19 vaccine on Thursday (Mar 18), said research, technology and creativity minister Khairy Jamaluddin, adding that he'll be the initial recipient of the China-made vaccine found in the country.
In a press meeting on Monday, the minister said the vaccine would 1st be administered in his constituency of Rembau, Pahang.
“On Mar 18 at 1.30pm, we will start vaccination with Sinovac in the Rembau Hospital. I will come to be the first to acquire the vaccine inside our country,” he said.
Mr Khairy said Malaysia has received 100,000 doses of the Sinovac vaccine on Mon. Another 100,000 doses will get received on Mar 22.
On Mar 2, Malaysia granted conditional acceptance for the use of vaccines created by UK company AstraZeneca and Sinovac, only days and nights after launching its nationwide COVID-19 inoculation program.
The vaccination travel kicked off on Feb 24, using the vaccine produced by US drugmaker Pfizer and German partner BioNTech.
The conditional approval means Malaysia use the vaccines produced by Astrazeneca and Sinovac, but both businesses - along with Pfizer - will be asked to provide additional data on rolling submissions to guarantee the vaccines' effectiveness and safety, health director-general Noor Hisham Abdullah said in an earlier statement.
Sinovac signed a deal with Malaysia's Pharmaniaga, that will perform the fill-and-finish process for the vaccine's distribution found in Malaysia, before later making it locally.
Through the press conference in Mon, Mr Khairy added that 301,699 primary doses of the Pfizer-Biontech vaccine have already been administered beneath the first stage of the national vaccination programme.
“Today we received 83,070 doses of the Pfizer vaccine. And on March 22, we will receive another 124,020 doses accompanied by 125,190 doses on Mar 29 which would help to make the cumulative number of Pfizer dosages received 1.35 million."
Mr Khairy, who's the coordinating minister for the nationwide COVID-19 immunisation program noted that of anyone who has been vaccinated, almost all were nurses followed by doctors, healthcare employees, enforcement officers, pharmacists and lastly parliamentarians together with politicians.
There are now a lot more than 320,000 COVID-19 conditions in Malaysia, with 1,210 dead.
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