Malaysia becomes first country outside China to conduct Phase 3 Clinical Trial Study of COVID-19 vaccine - PM

KUALA LUMPUR: Phase 3 Clinical Trial Study of the COVID-19 vaccine will be conducted starting January 21 at nine hospitals of the Ministry of Health (MOH) under the management of their respective Clinical Studies Centres.

Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin said the clinical trial study involves 3,000 volunteers and Malaysia would be the first country outside of China to study candidates for inactivated COVID-19 vaccine made by The Institute of Medical Biology at the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences (IMBCAMS), China.

"All regulatory requirements including ethical approval from the Medical Review & Ethics Committee (MREC) and finally, the Clinical Trial Import License (CTIL) from the National Pharmaceutical Regulatory Agency (NPRA) was obtained on January 8.

"Besides that, NPRA MOH has also approved the registration of the COVID-19 vaccine produced by the pharmaceutical company, Pfizer," he said in the Prime Minister's Special Address on the Implementation of the Movement Control Order (MCO), here today.

Earlier, the Prime Minister said the six states categorized as MCO states are Penang, Selangor, Federal Territories (Kuala Lumpur, Putrajaya, and Labuan), Melaka, Johor and Sabah.

He said the six states categorized as Conditional MCO (MCO) are Pahang, Perak, Negeri Sembilan, Kedah, Terengganu, and Kelantan, while the two states under the Recovery MCO (RMCO) category are Perlis and Sarawak.