Malaysian regulators approve locally produced Sinovac COVID-19 vaccine

Source: Xinhua| 2021-04-23 20:12:00|Editor: huaxia

KUALA LUMPUR, April 23 (Xinhua) -- Malaysia regulators on Friday granted a conditional approval for the COVID-19 vaccine developed by the Chinese pharmaceutical company Sinovac Biotech and produced in Malaysia in a move expected to boost Malaysia's anti-coronavirus effort as well as its pharmaceutical industry.

According to the decision made by Malaysia's National Pharmaceutical Regulatory Agency (NPRA), the Malaysian pharmaceutical company Pharmaniaga will "fill and finish" the Sinovac vaccines locally.

Under the conditional approval, the CoronaVac vaccines to be produced locally will be used in emergency, Health Ministry Director-General Noor Hisham Abdullah said in a statement.

The official added it is the first "fill and finish" vaccine manufactured in Malaysia and a new achievement for the Southeast Asian country.

"It is hoped this development will catalyze the growth of the local pharmaceutical industry to produce such products," he said.

The CoronaVac vaccines manufactured by Sinovac Biotech in China have already been approved by Malaysian regulators and in use in the country's immunization program.

The locally manufactured COVID-19 vaccines are expected to boost Malaysia's efforts to combat the COVID-19 pandemic as the country has seen a resurgence of infections recently.

The health ministry reported 2,847 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 on Friday, bringing the country's total tally to 387,535.

Of the new cases, four were imported and 2,843 were locally transmitted.

An additional eight deaths were reported from the coronavirus epidemic in Malaysia, bringing the death toll to 1,415.

An additional 2,341 patients were discharged from hospitals, bringing the total number of recoveries to 363,608 or 93.8 percent of all cases.

Of the existing 22,512 active cases, 260 are being held in intensive care units and 125 of those are in need of assisted breathing. Enditem

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