MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 01st February, 2021) Malaysia expects to receive the first shipment of Pfizer/BioNTech vaccines on February 26, the Bernama news agency reported on Monday, citing Noor Hisham Abdullah, the director general at the Malaysian Health Ministry.
According to the health official, the vaccine doses will be distributed to the Malaysian states in stages within few weeks after their arrival.
In late 2020, Malaysia inked a deal with Pfizer on procurement of 12.8 million doses of its vaccine, and later agreed to purchase additional 12.2 million doses.
Kuala Lumpur also signed a deal with China's Sinovac to purchase its COVID-19 vaccine and to manufacture it domestically. The country plans to start administering Sinovac's vaccine shots in early March. In addition, Malaysia plans to use Russia's Sputnik V and the vaccine developed by UK drugmaker AstraZeneca.
As of now, Malaysia has reported over 219,000 COVID-19 cases, more than 170,000 recoveries and 770 deaths.
