Malaysia greenlights Moderna Covid vaccine for conditional use as coronavirus cases climb

Malaysia’s Drug Control Authority has announced that Moderna’s Covid vaccine has been given conditional approval for usage, just as the country suffers a surge in daily coronavirus infections.

In a statement released on Thursday, the drug regulator’s director-general, Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah, explained the decision to conditionally approve Moderna’s Spikevax was to ensure that “information on the quality, safety and effectiveness of the vaccine be monitored and evaluated based on the latest data from time to time.”

The director-general further added that the Ministry of Health is “committed to improving access to Covid-19 vaccine products in Malaysia.”

Adding Moderna to Malaysia’s vaccine portfolio coincides with the country observing an unprecedented uptick in daily positive coronavirus infections. Over 20,500 cases on Thursday, with almost 20,000 cases recorded the day prior.

Alongside the conditional approval of Moderna’s Spikevax, Pfizer/BioNTech, Oxford/AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson’s Jansen, and Chinese Sinovac, CanSino, and Sinopharm are other vaccines rolled out in the South-East Asian country. However, Malaysia recently announced that it will stop using Sinovac once supplies run out. It says the vaccine proved to have diminished efficacy against the highly contagious Delta variant, with at least 10 fully inoculated doctors dying in Indonesia in June.

According to data released on Wednesday, 14.7 million first doses of a coronavirus vaccine have been administered in Malaysia, with the number of second shots given standing at 7.7 million.

Since the outbreak of the pandemic, the South-East Asian country has recorded over 1.2 million coronavirus cases, with the overall Covid death-toll standing at just under 10,000 fatalities as of August 4.

If you like this story, share it with a friend!