THERE are four vaccine clinical trials in the process of getting approval from health authorities, including the trials for Sinovac’s CoronaVac vaccine for those between the ages of three and 17, Dr Adham Baba told the Dewan Rakyat today.

The health minister said the four trials are in the process of getting approvals from the Medical Research and Ethics Committee (MREC) and the National Pharmaceutical Regulatory Agency (NPRA).

Adham said this includes the (trial of the) CoronaVac vaccine produced by Sinovac for candidates aged between three and 17, the mRNA vaccine by Walvax Biotechnology, the recombinant vaccine from Westvac Biopharm and the subunit protein vaccine from Anhui Zhifei.

The Sinovac vaccine will be available for sale in the open market from next month.

The Tenggara MP said this during the briefing to the house on the actions taken to manage the Covid-19 pandemic.

Adham was heckled by opposition MPs after his speech lasted for more than 45 minutes, with some calling for a PDF document instead.

Ahmad Fahmi Mohamed Fadzil (Lembah Pantai-PH) said the speech was long-winded.

“Speaker (Azhar Azizan Harun), can I request for a copy because the minister’s text is long and has a lot of facts…it is so long that even the minister was looking at the time over and over again,” he said.

Sivarasa Rasiah (Sungai Buloh-PH) asked the speaker to ensure that the hard copy of the text read out by the ministers were sent to the tables of each MP as it was the norm.

He said the MPs will also need the text for reference to ask questions.

Taking note of that, Azhar asked the minister to arrange for the copies. – July 27, 2021.