Health director-general Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said the decision was made following a meeting by the Drug Control Authority (DCA) today.

The ministry has also given conditional approval for the Sinovac vaccine to be administered to those aged 12 and above, he said in a statement.

Previously, the ministry granted approval for a less potent version of the Pfizer vaccine to children.

The national immunisation programme for children (PICKids), which has been ongoing since Feb 3, has successfully administered the first dose of Covid-19 vaccines to 904,368 (25.5%) children in the age bracket so far.

PICKids is aiming to vaccinate 3.6 million children aged five to 11 ahead of the new school year and to make sure that the risk of infection is minimised as well as to prevent clusters and cases among school staff.

Noor Hisham also said that the health ministry had granted conditional approval for the use of Paxlovid pills to treat Covid-19 patients who may be at risk of suffering severe symptoms.

The pill is produced by Pfizer.

“Paxlovid is not meant to be a replacement for Covid-19 vaccines,” he added.

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