Malaysia Approves Pfizer’s Covid Vaccine for 5 to 11 Year Olds

(Bloomberg) -- Malaysia is set to widen its vaccine roll-out to those as young as five years old after it granted conditional registration for Pfizer-BioNTech’s Cominarty 10mcg vaccine.

• The national Drug Control Authority also issued conditional registration to CanSino Biologics’ vaccine as a booster shot for adults over the age of 18, said Health Director-General Noor Hisham Abdullah in a statement Thursday
  • NOTE: This is in addition to the Pfizer, AstraZeneca and Sinovac vaccines already approved for booster doses
• The conditional registration requires continuous monitoring and evaluation of the quality, safety and efficacy of the vaccines
• Malaysia will avoid reimposing a lockdown as much as possible despite the spread of the omicron variant, said Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin in a briefing Thursday
  • The majority of the cases stem from pilgrims returning from Saudi Arabia; 14% of them were unvaccinated and in violation of government rules
    • Malaysia is suspending for one month all religious pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia effective Saturday, and reviewing its virus protocols on the matter
  • Malaysia has a total 245 omicron cases, 12 of which are local transmissions

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