by NUR HANANI AZMAN / pic by TMR FILE

DKSH Holdings (Malaysia) Bhd has been appointed by the Health Ministry (MoH) as the official distributor of the CanSino vaccine nationwide, effective August 25, 2021.

Under this agreement, DKSH will store and distribute CanSino vaccine to all MoH-designated vaccination centres in East and West Malaysia.

DKSH’s business unit healthcare VP Gary Chee said the company has been a pivotal partner to Malaysian healthcare for almost a century.

“Over the years, we have supported both public and private healthcare in several vaccine projects. We deliver on our promise to preserve the quality and safety of products under our care according to stringent quality standards.

“With our proven distribution competence in East and West Malaysia, we are confident of providing reliable and safe cold chain services in accordance with good distribution practice and quality assurance standards for important and urgent deliveries like the Covid-19 vaccines,” Chee said in a statement yesterday.

The CanSino vaccine will be stored at DKSH Malaysia’s ISO-certified healthcare distribution centre in Shah Alam.

The distribution centre has existing fit-for-purpose cold chain capabilities to handle life-saving drugs and highly sensitive temperature-controlled vaccines.

On August 20, Malaysia had received 200,000 doses of CanSino Covid-19 vaccine, the first delivery out of 3.5 million doses ordered from CanSino Biologics Inc.

On June 15, the Drug Control Authority had given conditional approval to CanSino and Johnson & Johnson vaccines, which both vaccines only required one dose to be effective.

With single-dose vaccines, recipients would be considered fully vaccinated 28 days after their jabs.

Malaysia has been utilising three vaccines for its Covid-19 vaccination programme, namely Pfizer, Sinovac and AstraZeneca vaccines.

These vaccines are administered in two doses with varying interval periods.

Over the years, DKSH has been supporting both public and private healthcare in several vaccine projects in Malaysia.