The AstraZeneca vaccine has arrived in Malaysia two months ahead of schedule.

This was confirmed by Health Minister Dr Adham Baba, who said 268,800 doses of the vaccines arrived last night.

AstraZeneca is the third Covid-19 vaccine to arrive in the country after Pfizer-BioNTech and Sinovac.

The administering of the Pfizer-BioNTech and Sinovac vaccines have generally proceeded smoothly in Malaysia. However, the AstraZeneca vaccine had been in the news even before its arrival.

European Union and UK regulators had investigated rare cases of blood clots involving the AstraZeneca vaccine.

They concluded that while there was a possible link of rare blood clots, the benefits of the vaccine still outweighed the risk of a Covid-19 infection for the vast majority of the people.

Adham, when contacted, said the National Pharmaceutical Regulatory Agency (NPRA) had approved the vaccine.

"The safety, quality and efficacy have all been considered in the approval by NPRA," he told Malaysiakini...