PUTRAJAYA: The Health Ministry will be looking to speed up its process of evaluating Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine and completing its dossier in less than 90 days.
Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said on Wednesday (Dec 23) that the government could grant the American pharmaceutical company a conditional registration, which would require the firm to submit all latest data of the vaccine’s development when available.
This, he said, included any new data on adverse effects following immunisation.
“In a normal situation, the National Pharmaceutical Regulatory Agency (NPRA) would take about 90 to 120 days to evaluate a vaccine or medicine before it can be registered.
Five people also died due to the coronavirus, raising Malaysia’s Covid-19 death toll to 444.
The country discharged 710 Covid-19 patients, which means 80,014 people have recovered.
The number of people with active Covid-19 infections in Malaysia has gone up to 18,279.
Currently, 102 patients are in intensive care, with 44 requiring ventilator support.
At a press conference, Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said 16 of Wednesday’s cases were imported infections, while the rest were local transmissions.
He said Selangor recorded the highest increase of the day for the eighth day running.
However, the state’s daily figure is a slight reduction at 535 confirmed cases, which is 39.7% of Wednesday’s total.
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A new Covid-19 virus strain was recently identified in the United Kingdom. This discovery might lead Malaysians to wonder what this means for us, and if we should be concerned.
The variant, dubbed B.1.1.7 or VUI-202012/01 (for the first “variant under investigation” in December 2020), first came to light in late November when the government agency Public Health England (PHE) was investigating why infection rates in Kent failed to decrease despite national restrictions.
Then, a cluster linked to the variant was discovered to be spreading rapidly into London and Essex, though the new strain was predominantly found in the areas South and East of England.
23 Dec 2020 / 21:30 H.
PUTRAJAYA: The Health Ministry (MOH) is monitoring the new Covid-19 mutation that was detected in Sabah from various angles, including its infectivity and impact on the people.
Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said the new A701B mutation was detected after the ministry conducted tests on 60 samples from the Benteng LD cluster in Sabah.
“We have identified the A701B mutation but are not sure of the clinical impact such as the infectivity rate of the mutation and the aggressiveness of the virus (of the mutated strain.
“The Covid-19 virus is always mutating, we need to know what the virus’ impact on health will be,” he said during the daily media conference on Covid-19 development here, today.
Tuesday, 22 Dec 2020 07:13 PM MYT
BY R. LOHESWAR
Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah speaks during a press conference in Putrajaya on December 9, 2020. Picture by Miera Zulyana
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KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 22 ― Malaysia recorded another 2,062 positive Covid-19 cases in the last 24 hours, beating yesterday’s 2,018 infections in a single day.
The Ministry of Health said all but four cases were caused by local infections.
It added that one more person died of the virus in Hospital Labuan. The 69-year-old non-Malaysian was said to have a history of heart disease and stroke.