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PETALING JAYA: There will be no political pressure to approve a Covid-19 vaccine for emergency use, says Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation Khairy Jamaluddin.
He said the clinical data on the vaccines would be evaluated by the National Drug Regulatory Agency (NPRA) before the vaccines can be administered.
“In Malaysia, there will be no political pressure and we will not use the emergency use route. The clinical data of the vaccines we obtain will be independently evaluated by NPRA @KKMPutrajaya before they can be approved and registered for use, ”he said in a tweet on Saturday (December 12).
He was responding to news that the United States had authorized the use of Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine on Friday, allegedly due to pressure from the Trump administration.
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had granted an emergency use authorization for the vaccine developed with German partner BioNTech, which was shown to be 95% effective in preventing disease in a late-stage trial.
He said the vaccine can be given to people over the age of 16.
Chief Health Officer Tan Sri Dr. Noor Hisham Abdullah has previously said that Malaysia’s deal with Pfizer would be void if the Covid-19 vaccine was not registered with the US FDA and NPRA.
Malaysia has registered more than 80,000 Covid-19 cases since the beginning of the pandemic, and more than 12,000 of them are considered active cases.
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