PUTRAJAYA: All vaccines approved and used in the Covid-19 National Immunisation Programme (NIP) are able to provide protection against new variants of the coronavirus.
Health Minister Datuk Seri Adham Baba said experts at the ministry have obtained the necessary data showing that Pfizer-BioNtech, Sinovac and AstraZeneca vaccines approved by the National Pharmaceutical Regulatory Agency (NPRA) for use in the NIP are able to protect the people against new variants of Covid-19.
"In order to provide better protection against Covid-19 and new variants of the virus, we must make sure that people are vaccinated," he told a media briefing here today.
Dr Adham was asked whether the Covid-19 vaccines currently used in the country are able to protect the people against new Covid-19 variants.
To date, he said, more than 500 genomic surveillance had been conducted to enable the ministry to detect 148 new Covid-19 variants during the third wave of the pandemic.
He said the new variant reportedly found in Vietnam, which has the characteristics of the Indian and United Kingdom variants, had not been detected in Malaysia.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) had reported that the recently-discovered Covid-19 variant found in Vietnam was not new but actually part of the Indian strain.
Dr Adham said the ministry was also looking at reducing the interval between the administration of the first and second dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine, from 12 weeks to six weeks.
This was to enable the people to be better protected against new variants of Covid-19.
"This is some of the things currently being looked into by the ministry and the Special Committee on Covid-19 Vaccine Supply Access Guarantee (JKJAV)," he said.
The interval of the administration between the first and second shots for the Pfizer-BioNtech and Sinovac vaccines, he said, would remain.
On a related matter, Dr Adham said the ministry was also studying the data following Australia's decision to give AstraZeneca to those above 60 years old in light of reported cases of blood clots in vaccine recipients.
"We are looking at data from Australia and the United Kingdom before making any decisions. So far, people in this country received no adverse side affects after getting AstraZeneca shot," he said.