KUALA LUMPUR, May 6 — Recipients of the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine who were given dates earlier than the recommended 12 weeks between doses for their second jab will have their appointments rescheduled.

The Covid-19 Vaccine Supply Access Guarantee Special Committee (JKJAV) tweeted as such in response to queries from members of the public, stating it will provide a new date for their second appointments soon.

"Hi, Yes, This date will be updated later.” and "Hi this will be changed soon. Thank you.” were the JKJAV’s two responses.

The AstraZeneca vaccine rollout began in Malaysia on a voluntary basis yesterday.

Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation Khairy Jamaluddin had said that the interval between the first and second doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine is set at 12 weeks.

He said this is in line with World Health Organisation (WHO) recommendations, and is currently being practised in the United Kingdom.

He did, however, say that the government would review applications for a shorter interval on a case-by-case basis.

Registration for the AstraZeneca vaccine opened on May 2 to 268,000 people in Kuala Lumpur and Selangor on a "first click and first serve” basis via the JKJAV website.

The AstraZeneca vaccine is available by appointment only, as opposed to the National Immunisation Programme (NIP) which currently does not allow registrants to choose between the Pfizer-BioNTech and Sinovac vaccines used.

For future rollouts of the AstraZeneca vaccine, Khairy said Malaysia is expecting the arrival of some 1.1 million doses this month via the Covid-19 Vaccines Global Access initiative or Covax.

This will be followed by another 610,000 doses from AstraZeneca itself in June, 410,000 doses in July and 1.2 million doses in August and September respectively.