Johor DAP committee member Dr Boo Cheng Hau said countries like Canada, the US and UK had already approved various mixed dose strategies to contain new variants, and if Malaysia did the same, it would be able to better utilise its vaccine supplies.

“The health ministry should announce the research data and findings on the benefits of heterologous (mixed vaccine) and homologous (same vaccine) boosters. So far, the Institute for Clinical Research has not officially announced its peer-reviewed data on the matter,” he said in a statement.

“So far, the health ministry has only approved the mix-and-match regime that involves a third dose of Comirnaty (Pfizer) after two doses of CoronaVac (Sinovac),” he said, adding that there was still little efficacy and safety data released on this regime.

“Data on other combinations of vaccines should be released too, including AstraZeneca followed by Pfizer or Sinovac, and Sinovac followed by AstraZeneca,” he said.

Boo said Malaysia must also begin planning its strategy to deploy multivalent vaccines (jabs that immunise against Covid-19 and other viruses), which are expected to become available some time next year.

“There are already a few teams researching multivalent vaccines which the health ministry should seriously look into, including getting locally-based data on their efficacy at an early stage so it can make early procurements and implement the vaccination programmes next year,” he said.

Until such planning was done, he said, it may be premature to declare that the country has moved into an endemic phase.

CLICK HERE FOR THE LATEST DATA ON THE COVID-19 SITUATION IN MALAYSIA