KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 4 — The government’s Covid-19 vaccination committee has approved heterologous inoculation, permitting the use of a different vaccine type for a booster, Khairy Jamaluddin said today.
The health minister said the Special Committee on Ensuring Access to Covid-19 Vaccine Supply’s (JKJAV) technical sub-committee headed by Dr Kalaiarasu Peariasamy, who is also the director of the Institute for Clinical Research, recommended last week to the JKJAV to allow the use of a different vaccine for a third dose from the type used for the first two doses.
“Studies on safety have been done and they are recommended to continue with the heterologous vaccination programme,” Khairy told Beaufort MP Azizah Mohd Dun in Parliament today.
He did not elaborate on which Covid-19 vaccines that JKJAV has recommended for use in the booster programme that is scheduled to start this month for high-risk groups.
CodeBlue reported last month that JKJAV is recommending either the Pfizer-BioNTech or AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccines for boosters.
Khairy said last September 24 that the booster vaccination programme would first be prioritised for people with compromised immune systems, the elderly with underlying health conditions, frontline health workers, and residents and workers at long-term care facilities.
He also said boosters would be given to “all individuals”, while National Recovery Council chairman Muhyiddin Yassin has assured Malaysians that the government procured enough coronavirus vaccines to offer third doses to all adult residents in the country.
