KUALA LUMPUR, June 21 — The first doses of the CanSino vaccine from CanSino Biologics Inc, China are scheduled to arrive in the country next month, Science, Technology and Innovation Minister Khairy Jamaluddin said.
However, he said that the Covax facility has yet to provide any updates on the Janssen Covid-19 vaccine from Johnson & Johnson.
“Meanwhile, for the CanSino vaccine as announced by the health minister before this, we will be receiving the first doses in July. We are finalising the delivery schedule for CanSino and I am confident that we will get to distribute the CanSino vaccine by the end of July.
“For Johnson & Johnson, we still have not received any response from the Covax facility. We exercised our option with Covax, to choose the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. However, to date, Covax has not yet given a delivery date for the Johnson & Johnson vaccine to Malaysia,” he added.
On June 15, Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah announced that Malaysia had given conditional approval for the two new vaccine variants, which need only one dose to be administered.
The vaccines are the Convidecia Recombinant Novel Coronavirus Vaccine (Adenovirus Type 5 Vector), produced by CanSino Biologics Inc, China, and the Janssen Covid-19 Vaccine from Johnson & Johnson.
On the Sputnik Covid-19 vaccine produced by Russia, Khairy said that Duopharma Biotech Bhd’s wholly-owned subsidiary, Duopharma (M) Sdn Bhd (DMSB), which holds the distribution rights to the product, has three months to register the vaccine with the National Pharmaceutical Regulatory Agency (NPRA), after inking an agreement with the government earlier this month.
He said that the NPRA still requires further information on the vaccine.
“However, NPRA also said that it would simplify the registration process if Sputnik gets emergency use (status) from the World Health Organisation (WHO). Sputnik has not received the EUL from WHO yet,” he said, referring to the Emergency Use Listing.
