THE National Pharmaceutical Regulatory Agency (NPRA) has granted conditional approval for the Covid-19 vaccines developed by British firm AstraZeneca and Chinese firm Sinovac Biotech, said Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah.

The health director-general said the holding companies are required to submit an analysis of their latest data by rolling submission to the NRPA for evaluation.

The is to ensure the effectiveness and safety of the vaccines as well as their risks and benefits.

NPRA is also assessing the Sputnik V vaccine by the Gamaleya Centre in Russia which is reported to have  a 91.6% efficacy rate.

Malaysiareceived its first batch of  312,390 doses of the Pfizer-BioNtech vaccine on February 21, kicking off the national immunisation programme on February 24.

This was followed by the delivery of 300,000 doses of the CoronaVac vaccine produced by China’s Sinovac Biotech on February 28.

Putrajaya has signed an agreement with AstraZeneca for the procurement of 6.4 million doses of its vaccine.

Malaysia has secured over 66 million doses of coronavirus vaccines, more than enough to immunise its population of around 32 million people.

The national vaccination programme aims to inoculate 80% of the population so as to achieve herd immunity by February 2022. – March 2, 2021.