Another half a million AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine doses delivered to Malaysia

Another half a million Astrazeneca COVID-19 vaccine doses delivered to Malaysia

AUGUST 20, 2021 @ 7.30PM

healthcaretoday, Astrazeneca, COVID-19 vaccine, COVAX, Astrazeneca Malaysia, pandemic,

The delivery of an additional 559,200 doses of COVID-19 vaccine comes at a critical time when Malaysia is seeing a surge in cases due to new variants.

AstraZeneca today delivered an additional 559,200 doses of its COVID-19 vaccine for use in Malaysia to support ongoing efforts to battle the pandemic. This latest shipment is part of AstraZeneca’s bilateral commitment to deliver a total of 6.4 million doses directly to Malaysia.

To date, more than 3.3 million doses of AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine have been delivered to Malaysia.

Dr Sanjeev Panchal, Country President, AstraZeneca Malaysia, said: “The shipment arrival comes at a critical time, when the country is seeing a surge in cases due to new variants, which threaten to disrupt our route out of the pandemic. There is an urgent need to ensure sustainable long-term supply of COVID-19 vaccine doses to support the effective vaccination of Malaysians as quickly as possible. We remain committed to prioritising supply of the vaccine to curb the spread of the virus, helping the country to move towards health and economic revival.”

The delivery marks an increase in AstraZeneca’s supply capacity for Asia-Pacific, via seven supply chains established within the region. Almost 30 million doses of AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine have been delivered across the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to date.

To date, more than one billion doses of AstraZeneca’s vaccine have been released for supply to over 170 countries at no profit as part of AstraZeneca’s commitment to broad and equitable access. The majority of doses have gone to low- and lower-middle-income countries. AstraZeneca is the third biggest supplier of COVID-19 vaccine doses in the world and was the first global pharmaceutical company to join COVAX in June 2020. More than 100 million doses of its COVID-19 vaccine have been delivered through COVAX to date.

COVID-19 Vaccine AstraZeneca
The COVID-19 Vaccine AstraZeneca, (ChAdOx1-S [Recombinant]), formerly AZD1222, was co-invented by the University of Oxford and its spin-out company, Vaccitech. It uses a replication-deficient chimpanzee viral vector based on a weakened version of a common cold virus (adenovirus) that causes infections in chimpanzees and contains the genetic material of the SARS-CoV-2 virus spike protein. After vaccination, the surface spike protein is produced, priming the immune system to attack the SARS-CoV-2 virus if it later infects the body.

Another half a million Astrazeneca COVID-19 vaccine doses delivered to Malaysia

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