Health Ministry to seek AstraZeneca clarification on acknowledgement of vaccine side effects

HULU SELANGOR: The Health Ministry will seek clarification from pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca in relation to the side effects of the Covid-19 vaccine as reported by the international media recently.

Its minister, Datuk Seri Dr Dzulkefly Ahmad said the pharmaceutical company should be responsible by submitting a thorough and transparent explanation not only to Malaysia but to the whole world, in order to avoid public concern among its vaccine recipients even though the risk rate (those who have side effects) reported is at a level of 0.88 out of a million vaccine doses administered.

“We ask AstraZeneca representatives to give a more thorough explanation… and I would prefer to be more transparent to all the people and media,” he said when met a health screening programme at Kampung Orang Asli Tun Abdul Razak here on Thursday (May 2).

“They (AstraZeneca) must be responsible…there is nothing for us to hide, and same with them.”

Recently, the international media reported that pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca admitted in a court document that its Covid-19 vaccine could cause rare side effects.

Dzulkefly said his ministry would continue to monitor as well as deal with the matter based on evidence of symptoms, in addition to having clinical guidelines to treat affected individuals.

Meanwhile, he said to overcome overcrowding at the Selayang Hospital, an emergency medicine specialist would be placed at the Kuala Kubu Bharu (KKB) Hospital this month, in addition to an internal medicine specialist who has been stationed permanently there since January.

“I found that today the increase (attendance at the KKB Hospital) is more than the pre-Covid-19 pandemic time, which means people here have confidence that this hospital has the specialists and they do not need to travel 45 kilometres back and forth to get treatment at the Selayang Hospital,” he also said.

“I will continue to make improvements to the KKB Hospital, and I want to stress that this is not being done due to the by-election but has been (long) planned.” – BK