PUTRAJAYA: Malaysia will start to administer the single-dose CanSino vaccine after receiving 200,000 doses from China's CanSino Biologics today.
Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah, in a Tweet, said the vaccine, of which its first batch landed this morning, is in the form of finished product.
"A total of 3.5 million CanSino vaccines have been ordered and will be delivered in stages.
"It is also the first single-dose Covid-19 vaccine (that will be used) in Malaysia," he said.
So far, the Covid-19 National Immunisation Programme (NIP) that started last February involved vaccines manufactured by Pfizer-BioNTech (Cominarty), Sinovac (CoronaVac) and AstraZeneca while the single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine has received conditional approval.
The CanSino vaccine doses were flown via MAS Cargo's MH361 flight and arrived at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) at 7.50am today.
The vaccine supply was received by Science, Technology and Innovation Ministry (MOSTI) secretary-general Datuk Dr Siti Hamisah Tapsir, Health Ministry secretary-general Datuk Mohd Shafiq Abdullah and MOSTI deputy secretary-general (Technology Development) Dr Mohd Nor Azman Hassan.
MOSTi, in a statement said, Solution Biologics is the product registration holder for the Cansino vaccine in Malaysia and the vaccine has been granted conditional approval for emergency use in the country by the National Drug Authority on June 15.
The arrival of the Cansino vaccine will facilitate vaccine administration in areas with poor access and help Malaysia achieve herd immunity as per the timeline set under the National Recovery Plan.