PUTRAJAYA: Malaysia received 200,000 doses of CanSino vaccines on Friday (August 20) – the first shipment of 3.5 million doses ordered from China's CanSino Biologics.

       The vaccine shipment arrived at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport at 7.50am in a MASKargo flight from Beijing.

       Present to witness the arrival of the vaccines were Science, Technology and Innovation Ministry secretary-general Datuk Dr Siti Hamisah Tapsir and Health Ministry secretary-general Datuk Mohd Shafiq Abdullah.

       CanSino is a single-dose vaccine and its usage in Malaysia was approved by the Drug Control Authority on June 15.

       Solution Biologics is the product registration holder for CanSino in Malaysia.

       So far, Malaysia has been utilising three vaccines for its National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme – Cominarty (Pfizer-BioNTech), CoronaVac (Sinovac) and AstraZeneca – and require two doses for full vaccination.

       Malaysia has also granted approval to Johnson & Johnson's Janssen vaccines – another single-dose vaccine.

       The single-dose regimen will make it easier for the government to reach out and vaccinate people in remote locations.