KUALA LUMPUR, August 20 — The first shipment of 200,000 doses of CanSino Biologics’ coronavirus vaccine arrived in Malaysia today, comprising 5.7 per cent of the government’s 3.5 million order.
The single-shot vaccine from the Chinese biopharmaceutical company based in Tianjin, China, arrived in finished product form.
“This supply will be able to further intensify the National Covid-19 Immunisation Program (PICK), especially in low-access areas and in turn help the country to achieve herd immunity targets as planned in the National Recovery Plan according to the set timeline,” the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation’s (MOSTI) corporate communications unit mentioned in a statement today.
Solution Biologics is the local product registration holder for the CanSino vaccine.
Last June, the Drug Control Authority (DCA) under the National Pharmaceutical Regulatory Agency (NPRA) issued conditional registration for emergency use of CanSino and the United States’ Johnson & Johnson Covid-19 vaccines.
The government to date has received 30,166,299 doses of Covid-19 vaccines from its procurement of 87,899,300 doses, including the newly arrived CanSino doses.
However, this does not include a total of 3,913,750 doses donated from the United States, Saudi Arabia, Japan, China, and the United Kingdom.
Then-Vaccine Minister Khairy Jamaluddin mentioned that the government might use single-shot vaccines to vaccinate foreigners, especially undocumented immigrants who might be afraid to come forward to the authorities to get vaccinated.
