NPRA evaluating Sinovac vaccine for young children

 

The National Pharmaceutical Regulator Agency (NPRA) is evaluating the use of Sinovac’s Covid-19 vaccine for use on children below 12 years old.

According to its director Roshayati Mohd Sani, the agency had just received the dossier on the vaccine’s use for this age group last week.

“We are still conducting the evaluation. We’ll need to consider it carefully because it concerns our lives and our society,” she told a media engagement session held via video conferencing today.

Previously, the Drug Control Authority had approved a low-dose formulation of Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine to be used on children aged five- to 11-year-old.

So far, it is the only vaccine approved in Malaysia for this age group, which began its rollout on Thursday last week.

The Sinovac vaccine was previously approved for older children aged 12 to 17 years, though the government’s vaccination campaign has mostly reserved it for adolescents with known allergies to the Pfizer vaccine. - Mkini