Health DG: Bivalent vaccines estimated to arrive end of January

Health director-general Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said that Pfizer’s bivalent vaccines are likely to arrive in Malaysia by the end of January.

Stepping in for Health Minister Dr Zaliha Mustafa at a press conference today after she had to leave halfway, he said that the vaccines were originally supposed to arrive late last year.

“At that time, the National Pharmaceutical Regulatory Agency (NPRA) approved bivalent vaccine on Dec 13 but it was a holiday season.

“Then we needed to sign an amendment of contractual agreement because the original contract is to provide monovalent vaccines only,” the director-general said at the ministry headquarters in Putrajaya.

He added that the ministry had been in discussions with Pfizer and that the bivalent vaccines would be sent by the end of this month.

However, Noor Hisham could not provide an exact date as this was just an estimate given by the pharmaceutical company as the ministry is still completing its first contract with Pfizer to only distribute monovalent vaccines.

“Before this, we were on a monovalent contract with Pfizer but now we have requested the bivalent ones.

“This cannot be settled within a day or two, it will take time,” he said.

Bivalent vaccines were created by Pfizer to strengthen the current Comirnaty (Covid-19) vaccine formulation.

They contain components of the original Covid-19 strain that was first detected in Wuhan, China, in 2020 along with the more recent Omicron subvariants.

The previous formulation was a monovalent vaccine that only had the Wuhan strain.

The Drug Control Authority (DCA) granted conditional approval for Pfizer’s updated vaccines as it was reported that the new booster improved protection against the new subvariants.

State of Covid-19 in Malaysia

The director-general also shared some updates regarding Malaysia’s condition in the endemic stage of Covid-19.

Noor Hisham said while the XBB variant was the dominant spread in the country, the new Omicron subvariant XBB.1.5 has yet to be detected.

“We are carefully checking foreign and local travellers to make sure they don’t bring in new variants and so far, we have only found BA.5.2 and BF.7 which are from China.

“But there is nothing to be worried about as we have ample vaccines and boosters - we are well-equipped medical-wise.

“The best prevention method is to be diligent in avoiding crowded places, sanitising our hands and wearing our masks as often as possible,” he added.

Work well enough

Noor Hisham reminded the public of Zaliha’s advice to not wait for bivalent vaccines as monovalent ones are just as good.

“Please go to your nearest public clinic or hospital to get those shots.

“They are readily available and work well enough to protect you from Covid-19,” he urged.

When asked about the vaccine wastage revealed by Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, the director-general said he could not provide any comments for now as the Health Ministry is still conducting investigations on the matter.

However, he reassured that the wastage percentages were not as big a ratio as compared to the population.

“What matters most is that more than 80 percent of Malaysians are vaccinated, but we will conduct the investigations soon,” he said. - Mkini