Malaysia Health Director-General Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah has announced that the Sinovac COVID-19 vaccine which is also known as CoronaVac has obtained conditional approval to vaccinate children as young as 12 years old. The decision was made during the Drug Control Authority’s 364th meeting which was held today.
Prior to this, Pfizer (Comirnaty) was the only vaccine that is authorised to be administered for teens aged 12 to 17 years old in Malaysia. With this announcement, teenagers are eligible to receive either Pfizer or Sinovac vaccines under the current vaccination programme for teens.
According to the statement, the Sinovac vaccines will be currently prioritised to teens without comorbidity and with allergies, who are unable to receive the Pfizer vaccine. The health authorities will evaluate the use of Sinovac vaccines for teens with comorbidity once they have obtained sufficient data.
The Ministry of Health emphasised that conditional approval for vaccines require the evaluation of data on quality, safety and effectiveness from time to time. This is to ensure that the benefits outweigh the risks. The conditional approval is given to both Sinovac Life Sciences Co Ltd in China as well as Pharmaniaga Lifesciences Sdn Bhd in Malaysia.
The People’s Republic of China had recently pledged to donate another 1 million doses of Sinovac vaccines to Malaysia. This is in addition to the 500,000 doses that were contributed in July 2021.
Teens are currently the main focus of the National Immunisation Programme as Malaysia has already fully vaccinated 86% of its total adults. Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin has shared that over 400,000 teens were infected with COVID-19 in this year alone, which is a significant jump from just 12,000 cases last year.
As of 30th September 2021, close to 1.5 million teens in Malaysia have received at least one dose and over 50,000 have completed their vaccination with two doses. The current goal is to fully vaccinate 3 million teens before the start of the next school year. In total, Malaysia has already fully vaccinated over 20 million people, which is 62% of the total population.
