Uggah, who is also the state disaster management committee (SDMC) chairman, said Sarawak had earlier requested from the federal government 650,000 doses of the vaccine, which only required one dose of injection.

“The CanSino is very much suitable for our people living deep in the interior areas, like Penan.

“Our medical teams will only need to visit them once to vaccinate them, thus cutting down on logistics, transportation and other costs,” he said in a statement here today.

On June 15, health director-general Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said the Drug Control Authority had approved the conditional registration for two vaccine products which needed only one-dose immunisation for use in the current situation.

He said the two vaccines were the Convidecia recombinant novel coronavirus vaccine (Adenovirus Type 5 Vector), produced by CanSino Biologics Inc, China, with the product registration holder being Solution Biologics Sdn Bhd, and the Janssen Covid-19 vaccine, manufactured by Johnson & Johnson.

They have been given emergency use listing by the World Health Organization.

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