KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 9 ― Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah today debunked new that vaccines made in China are unsafe to use, saying that the East Asian nation has a successful track record in manufacturing vaccines for diseases other than Covid-19.

Dr Noor Hisham was responding to a question by a journalist, who highlighted a news article that has been making the rounds over the past few days, alleging that vaccines manufactured in China are not safe

"The news is not true at all. If we see, China has come out with prequalified vaccines for the World Health Organisation (WHO), for example, vaccines for influenza, polio, hepatitis A, and japanese encephalitis.

"So they have experience with manufacturing vaccines,” he said during a press conference today.

He said that the issue now was the Covid-19 vaccine is new, which requires testing in three phases.

He highlighted that Malaysia has yet to receive any report on the third phase of testing for any of the Covid-19 vaccines developed globally.

Dr Noor Hisham previously said on December 4 that the Health Ministry will conduct its own third phase of clinical trials on a vaccine that is developed by the Institute of Medical Biology Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences in Beijing, China.

This decision was made after phases one and two of clinical trials in China showed that the vaccine is safe to use and garnered good results.