Health Minister Dr Adham Baba has said that Minister of Science, Innovation and Technology, Khairy Jamaluddin, will be the first person to receive the Sinovac COVID-19 vaccine in Malaysia. This was revealed during a press conference on the national immunisation programme.
Last week, the NPRA has granted conditional approval for Sinovac and AstraZeneca vaccines. However, Malaysia isn’t using the the bulk Sinovac vaccines which will undergo fill and finish process by Pharmaniaga just yet. The local fill-finished vaccines requires another approval by the NPRA.
The first batch of 100,000 doses of the finished Sinovac vaccines will arrive from Beijing on 15th March, followed by another batch of 100,000 doses on 19th March.
These Sinovac vaccines will be administered during Phase 1 of the national immunisation programme which aims to cover a total of 500,000 frontliners by April 2021.
As pledged by Khairy, he will be the first to receive the next approved vaccine by the NPRA to prove that it is safe. Sinovac will be the second vaccine after Pfizer to be used in the vaccination programme.
According to Khairy, the Sinovac vaccines will require some time for NPRA’s lot release inspection after its arrival. He joked perhaps by the third week of March, he would be fluent in mandarin.
As of 8am this morning, a total of 3,658,538 people have registered for the vaccination. Selangor has recorded the most with 1,408,115 registrations while Perlis has the least at 17,892. Apart from MySejahtera, you can also register via vaksincovid.gov.my or call in at 1-800-888-828.
The COVID-19 vaccines are offered for free which include both Malaysians and non-Malaysians. Phase 2 which covers senior citizens, people with chronic illnesses and people with disability, will begin starting next month.
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