The Covid vaccine is giving hope to everyone all over the world for some normalcy in the background of a growing pandemic. Yes there are new strains but we are optimistic these vaccines are able to protect us against the new strain. Only time can tell. Of course there will always be many who are skeptical about the vaccine, it being new and novel.
There are close to 10 vaccines available and approved in the market. This is probably the biggest vaccination campaign in the history of mankind. As of today the 15th of January 2021 35 million doses in 49 countries have been administered. Vaccination in the US began as early as the 14th of December and thus far a total of 11.9 million doses have been dished out. It may seem a lot but still fall short of the federal projections as vaccinations proceeded unevenly across the states of America.
China approved its first Covid19 towards the end of 2020. The first vaccine approved is produced by Sinopharma. Vaccination started early this month. Beijing inoculated about 73000 in the first 2 days of vaccination. The China’s capital set up 220 vaccination centres. UAE, Bahrain, Pakistan and Ukraine have assumed vaccination programs with China’s Sinovac vaccines. The main advantage of this vaccine is it can be stored in a standard refrigerator at 2-8 degrees Celsius.
Closer to home, Singapore has pulled ahead of its neighbours to be the first country in SouthEast Asia to start its vaccination program. Inoculation of healthcare workers started as early as 30th of December. Indonesia has not only started its vaccination program but is developing a Covid19 vaccine of its own Merah Putih, hoping to provide 57.6 millions of vaccines to the world fourth most populous country. Malaysia is spending US 504 million on Covid vaccines, and plans to cover 80% of its population. Khairy Jamaluddin the Science and Technology Minister of Malaysia stated that Malaysia is set to secure 6.4 million doses of AstraZeneca vaccine, 14 million of Sinovac vaccines, 3.5 million of CanSino vaccines and 6.4 million of Russia’s Sputnik V vaccines. However, inoculation of the vaccine in Malaysia will not take off until probably the second quarter of 2021. This is discouraging in view of the ever increasing numbers of infection, so much so that a state of emergency had to be called. I do hope the vaccination programs in Malaysia can be better coordinated and hasten to ensure safety for all especially the frontliners.
Do keep safe and stay home. Have a good weekend ahead.
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Dr Betty Teh
Founder and Editor in Chief
Beating Hearts
