Health Department: Sarawak to keep using Pfizer as booster, Sinovac only under certain circumstances

KUCHING: Sarawak will continue to use the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid19 vaccine, which is approved by the Ministry of Health (MoH), as a booster dose for Sarawakians, the state Health Department said yesterday.

In a statement, the department said it would only administer the Sinovac vaccine as a booster dose against Covid-19 under certain circumstances.

State Health deputy director (public health) Dr Rosemawati Ariffin said the administration of the booster dose throughout Sarawak is in accordance with the latest MoH policy where only the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine is allowed for recipients of PfizerBioNTech or Sinovac primary doses.

“However, the Sinovac vaccine is only used as a booster dose in certain circumstances, such as, if the recipient of the vaccine has a contraindication or allergy to the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine,” she explained.

Dr Rosemawati further pointed out that the Covid-19 booster dose was given to eligible individuals who belonged to high-risk groups and the time interval from the second dose according to the type of primary vaccine previously administered.

“This policy is in line with the current circular and instructions regarding the implementation of booster dose and third dose from the MoH Malaysia,” she stressed.

The department was responding to Bukit Assek incumbent Irene Chang’s statement that the Sinovac vaccine had been given to Sabahans as a booster dose, while only the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine was available as a booster dose in Sarawak.

Chang had opined that as 77.7 per cent of the population in Sarawak had been inoculated with the Sinovac vaccine for their first and second doses, the majority of them were reluctant and very concerned about the ‘mix-and-match’ approach.

The Democratic Action Party (DAP) leader had called on the state government to make the Sinovac booster available to this group as soon as possible.

Chang added that the government must realise that no matter how much data had been presented to show the safety of the ‘mix-and-match’ approach in dispensing booster shots, there were still those unconvinced by the data.