Page 162 - MALAYSIA HEALTH SECTOR RESPONSE TO COVID-19 PANDEMIC: PERSPECTIVES FROM THE FIELD

PART 8: EVIDENCE-BASED RESPONSES TO THE
THIRD COVID-19 WAVE IN MALAYSIA

8.1 Vaccines

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought an enormous impact to the world in
the health and economic sectors. As of 31st December 2020, there were
81,533,368 COVID-19 cases with more than 1.7 million fatalities . An urgent
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solution was therefore essential to address this threat. An increasing
number of pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries channeled all their
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efforts into developing a COVID-19 vaccine . To accelerate this progress,
global health leaders worldwide were collaborating in the development of
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vaccines .
As of 18th December 2020, 63 vaccines were undergoing clinical trials on
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humans, and 18 had reached the final testing stages (Phase 3) . On 2nd
December 2020, the United Kingdom became the first Western country to
grant emergency authorisation to Pfizer-BioNTech’s vaccine. This was
followed by other countries, including the United States, Chile, Costa Rica,
Ecuador, Kuwait, Mexico, Panama, and Singapore. Meanwhile, Bahrain,
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Canada, and Saudi Arabia gave the vaccine full approval . On 18th December
2020, the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) authorised
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another vaccine by Moderna for emergency utilisation in the United States .
The selection of a COVID-19 vaccine to be used in Malaysia would
incorporate criteria such as high quality, safe for use, and effectiveness
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based on the results of clinical trials . MOH Malaysia would continuously
monitor the effectiveness of these vaccines in high-risk groups. The
effectiveness and side effects of the vaccines would be assessed, and
whether they are effective in providing herd immunity would be
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determined . Most importantly, these vaccines must be registered with the
FDA for regulatory approval and the MOH's National Pharmaceutical
Regulatory Agency (NPRA) before they could be widely used in Malaysia .
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In light of COVID-19 vaccines being available in the market soon, the
Malaysian government had signed a preliminary purchasing agreement with
the Pfizer pharmaceutical company on 24th November 2020 to obtain 12.8
million doses of COVID- 19 vaccines to meet the immunisation needs of 20%
or 6.4 million Malaysians first . The vaccines would be delivered in 4
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batches; one million doses, 1.7 million doses, 5.8 million doses, and 4.3
million doses in the first, second, third, and fourth quarters of 2021,

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126 EVIDENCE-BASED RESPONSES TO THE THIRD COVID-19 WAVE IN MALAYSIA