KUALA LUMPUR (Oct 20): AstraZeneca has delivered an additional 604,100 doses of its Covid-19 vaccine for use in Malaysia to support the country’s ongoing battle against the pandemic.
In a statement on Wednesday, AstraZeneca said the latest shipment is part of its bilateral commitment to delivering 6.4 million doses directly to Malaysia.
It added that to date, more than 5.1 million doses of its vaccine had been delivered to Malaysia through direct supply, COVAX and donations from other countries.
It said more vaccine doses are expected to be delivered between now and early 2022.
AstraZeneca Malaysia country president Dr Sanjeev Panchal said as the country transitions to the endemic state and as Malaysians learn to live with the virus, the firm will continue to work alongside the government to ensure sustainable supply of the vaccine in the long term.
“With public health as our top priority, we remain committed to providing broad and equitable access to our vaccine for all Malaysians,” he said.
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He said that to date, more than 1.5 billion doses of AstraZeneca’s vaccine had been released for supply to over 170 countries as part of the company’s commitment to broad and equitable access.
Panchal said approximately two-thirds of the doses went to low- and lower-middle-income countries.
AstraZeneca was the first global pharmaceutical company to join COVAX in June 2020 and more than 150 million doses of its vaccine had been delivered globally through COVAX to 130 countries to date, Panchal added.