Malaysia takes delivery of Sinovac Covid-19 vaccine

 

Malaysia today took the delivery of the Sinovac vaccine, another brand of the Covid-19 vaccine it has procured, almost a week after it received the first batch of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.

The “envirotainer” - a temperature-controlled container - with 200 litres of the vaccine arrived at 9am at the KL International Airport (KLIA) from Beijing in a Malaysia Airlines Airbus 330-300 aircraft, Flight MH319, bearing the livery of the Jalur Gemilang (national flag).

The passenger-to-cargo flight had left Kuala Lumpur for Beijing at 7.05pm on Friday to pick up the vaccine. The 200 litres of the vaccine can make available more than 300,000 doses.

Several ministers were at KLIA when the vaccine arrived, namely Senior Minister (Security Cluster) Ismail Sabri Yaakob; Foreign Minister Hishamuddin Tun Hussein; Coordinating Minister of the National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme Khairy Jamaluddin and Transport Minister Wee Ka Siong.

Also present was China’s ambassador to Malaysia Ouyang Yujing.

After the aircraft cargo door was opened, the “envirotainer” containing the vaccine was unloaded using a jumbo container pallet loader and transferred to a dolly.

The “envirotainer” is able to maintain the temperature within at between two and eight degrees Celsius.

After the “envirotainer” had been unloaded, Ouyang handed a white box to Ismail to symbolise the handing over of the vaccine.

- Bernama