THE Health Ministry has confirmed that no placebos are used in the national Covid-19 immunisation programme.

In a statement today, the ministry said claims made in a viral video that placebos are being used are not true.

It said placebos, which do not contain ‘active substances’, were used in clinical studies, where recipients would be randomly divided into two groups – one receives the active substance while the other gets a placebo.

“This situation is only used during clinical trials and not for registered products used in the national Covid-19 immunisation programme,” it said.

It also said all pharmaceutical products, including vaccines, approved by the Drug Control Authority (DCA) are produced by manufacturers that complied with international standards such as Good Manufacturing Practice, Pharmaceutical Inspection Cooperation Scheme and World Health Organization.

“Product quality monitoring is done throughout the manufacturing process, where quality control tests will be conducted on each batch before being marketed. For registered products, it only contains active ingredients and excipients that have been certified by DCA for marketing, and not a placebo,” the ministry said.

It said the National Pharmaceutical Regulatory Agency also evaluates manufacturing documents and conducts cold-chain inspections for each batch of Covid-19 vaccines through a strict lot release process to ensure the content and quality are guaranteed.

The ministry also questioned how the party in the video had obtained a sample of Covid-19 vaccine and conducted a test on it, when in fact, Covid-19 vaccines are only allowed to be sold and supplied to the government and government-authorised parties.

As such, it said, it views the claims made in the video as fake news and an attempt to confuse the public and tarnish the integrity of the ministry.

It added that it will be lodging reports with the police and the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission over the matter. – Bernama, January 26, 2022.