Current Covid-19 booster shots only for Pfizer recipients – S’wak Health director

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Sarawak Health Director Dato Dr Mohamed Sapian Mohamed – Photo by Chimon Upon

KUCHING (Oct 13): The currently Covid-19 Pfizer BioNTech booster shots in Sarawak is only for those who had been injected with the same vaccine brand, said State Health director Datuk Dr Mohamed Sapian Mohamed.

Therefore, he added, those who has been fully vaccinated with Sinovac and Astra Zaneca (AZ) will have to wait a bit longer for their booster shots.

“Booster dose (of Pfizer BioNTech) at this time will be administered on recipients of first and second dose of the Pfizer. Those who were given Sinovac and AZ not yet,” he said.

Oct 11 news report stated that another batch of 210,600 doses of Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine arrived in the state from Belgium on Oct 10.

Sarawak Disaster Management Committee (SDMC) advisor Dato Sri Dr Sim Kui Hian was quoted as saying that this is part of the National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme’s (PICK) booster doses for Sarawak.

Dr Sim, who is Local Government and Housing Minister, said Sarawak has been entrusted by Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin, Ministry of Health (MoH) and Covid-19 Immunisation Task Force (CITF) to be the first in the country to administer the booster dose.

He added that Sarawak is setting the precedent for the rest of Malaysia.

Last Friday, National Pharmaceutical Regulatory Agency (NPRA) under the MoH approved only Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine as the booster dose.

However, this booster dose is only for those who have been fully vaccinated for six months.

Dr Sim said there is no policy decision yet on other vaccines as booster and duration of other vaccines after vaccination.

For Sarawak, he said the State Covid-19 Vaccine Advisory Group (Scovag) recommended 340,000 individuals who are categorised as Priority 1 – high risk, vulnerable, aged 60 and above and medical frontliners to be administered the booster dose.

He added that this priority group will receive the booster dose this month and next month.