Malaysia Only Received 34% Of Covid-19 Vaccines Ordered To Date

From the total 33.9 million doses received, Malaysia has administered about 28.8 million (85%) as of August 17: Sinovac (50%), Pfizer (42%), and AstraZeneca (8%).

KUALA LUMPUR, August 18 — Malaysia has only received slightly more than a third of Covid-19 vaccines from the government’s total order, excluding doses contributed by foreign countries. 

As of August 16, Malaysia has received 33,879,979 doses of Pfizer-BioNTech, AstraZeneca-Oxford, Sinovac and CanSino vaccines, according to a joint statement by the Ministry of Health (MOH) and the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation (MOSTI) today that did not reveal the breakdown by brand.

This means Malaysia has already received 29,966,229 doses, or 34.09 per cent, from its procurement of 87,899,300 doses, after deducting 3,913,750 doses donated from the United States, Saudi Arabia, Japan, China, and the United Kingdom.

CodeBlue earlier reported that a total of 87.9 million doses of Covid-19 vaccines procured by the the federal government comprised 44,799,300 doses from Pfizer-BioNTech, Sinovac (20,400,000), AstraZeneca-Oxford (6,400,000), CanSino (3,500,000), Sputnik (6,400,000) and global vaccine sharing facility COVAX (6,400,000).

As of August 16, Malaysia has received donations of 3,913,750 doses of Covid-19 vaccines from the United States (1,000,350 doses of Pfizer), Saudi Arabia (1,000,000 doses of AstraZeneca), Japan (998,400 doses of AstraZeneca), China (500,000 doses of Sinovac), and the United Kingdom (415,000 doses of AstraZeneca). 

It is to be noted that the UAE’s donation of a million doses of coronavirus vaccines has yet to arrive in Malaysia.

Sinovac Forms Half Of Covid-19 Vaccines Administered 

Based on the Covid-19 Immunisation Task Force’s (CITF) data shared on GitHub, Malaysia has administered a total of 28,837,742 doses of Covid-19 vaccines as of August 17. 

This includes Sinovac with the biggest share at 50 per cent (14,445,151 doses), Pfizer at 42 per cent (12,066,125 doses), and AstraZeneca at 8 per cent (2,277,820 doses). 

Totalling the number of vaccine doses administered by brand comes up to 28,789,096, leading to a difference of 48,646 doses between the total doses that have been administered and the total administered doses of Sinovac, Pfizer, and AstraZeneca.

CITF explained that the difference in doses is placed under the “pending” category, which means the doses delivered are “quarantined” in the Vaccine Management System due to errors or inconsistencies in vaccine barcode, batch number, and other technical details.

As of August 17, the country had a balance of 5,042,237 unadministered doses from the total of 33,879,979 doses received so far, with a high vaccine administration rate of 85 per cent.

Malaysia has already fully vaccinated 48.7 per cent of adults as of August 17, with six states having given two doses of Covid-19 vaccine to more than 40 per cent of their adult population. 

That includes Labuan (89.7 per cent), Sarawak (82.1 per cent), the Klang Valley (71.2 per cent), Negeri Sembilan (66.3 per cent), Perlis (56.5 per cent) and Melaka (41.4 per cent).

Vaccine Efficacy In Reducing Infections, Hospital and ICU Admissions

According to the joint statement by MOSTI and MOH, Covid-19 vaccines are effective in preventing coronavirus infection in the country. 

Of the 19,740 new cases reported on August 16, only 1.5 per cent of cases belonged to Category Three to Five, requiring intensive treatment due to lung infection, oxygen supplementation, as well as ventilator support.

A total of 85.13 per cent from the majority of daily cases were in Category One and Two, depicting mild or no symptoms.

“In addition, daily Covid-19 cases recorded a decline in Sarawak and Labuan as an effect of high immunisation coverage,” MOH and MOSTI mentioned. 

“In Sarawak 81.5 per cent of the adult population have received two complete doses of the vaccine while in Labuan, 89.3 per cent of the adult population have received two complete doses of vaccine.

“As a result, Labuan recorded zero daily cases on August 14 and only five daily cases were reported in the last two days.”

The statement also pointed out that the implementation of Operation Surge Capacity in Klang Valley has decreased hospital admissions for Covid-19 and the bed occupancy rate in the intensive care units (ICU). 

“At the Tengku Ampuan Rahimah Hospital (HTAR) in Klang, the total daily patient admissions decreased 50 per cent over the past week. The same situation occurred in Pahang where the number of patients in Category Three, Four and Five began to decline.”

CodeBlue reported earlier today that daily hospital admissions, the number of patients in hospital, ICU cases, and infections of Covid-19 in Selangor, KL, Putrajaya, and Negeri Sembilan as a whole dropped in the past few weeks, with half of the Greater Klang Valley’s total population fully vaccinated.

Malaysia once again reported a record high fresh Covid-19 infections in the country at 22,242 cases, bringing the total cases to 1,466,512.

States like Sabah (2,413 cases) and Penang (1,867 cases) witnessed new record high Covid-19 infections today. Both of these states have been placed under Phase Two of the National Recovery Plan.

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