KUALA LUMPUR, 16 July — Malaysia’s Drug Control Authority (DCA) granted conditional approval for the emergency use of two COVID-19 vaccines, China’s Sinopharm and Janssen vaccine made by US drugmaker Johnson & Johnson and manufactured in Belgium.
In a statement released today (July 16) the Malaysian Ministry of Health said that the “conditional registration approval requires information on the quality, safety and effectiveness of the vaccine product to be monitored and evaluated based on the latest data from time to time.”
“It is to ensure that the benefit over risk for the vaccines remains positive,” it added.
Reuters reported that Malaysia had earlier approved another batch of Janssen vaccines that had been given the green light for emergency use by the World Health Organisation.
The Malaysian National Immunisation Programme has now a total of six vaccines being administered: Sinopharm, Pfizer-BioNTech, AstraZeneca, Sinovac, Cansino, and Johnson & Johnson.
Sources: Reuters/The Star/Agencies
