Covid-19 | mRNA vaccines arrive, gov’t reopens jab registrations for seniors

The Pfizer-BioNtech mRNA vaccine produced in Germany, and distributed in cooperation with Fosun, arrived on Saturday in Macau and it will be made available to the public from this Wednesday.
EU’s European Medicines Agency certified that the mRNA vaccine can be administered to people aged 16 or more and it is suitable for people over the age of 59.
On February 24, the SAR government suspended use of the inactivated vaccine developed by Chinese state-owned pharmaceutical company Sinopharm Group for those aged 60 years old or above.
The move was made to ensure the city’s vaccination scheme would run smoothly, as some of the elderly who registered for the scheme failed to meet the two prerequisites for receiving the inactivated vaccines, including being at high-risk from Covid-19 and being physically fit.
The government resumed online vaccine registrations yesterday for senior citizens aged 60 years old or above, after the 100,425 doses of the mRNA vaccine by German drug manufacturer BioNTech landed in the region.
The current system requires the elderly to fill in an online evaluation form, which has more than 10 questions about their medical history and health status.
Once the survey is complete, the system will inform those who are not classified as having a high-risk of exposure to Covid-19, that they will only be allowed to take the BioNTech vaccine or the AstraZeneca vaccine, a form of replication-defective adenovirus vector vaccine which is expected to arrive in Macau in June this year.
Meanwhile, there is no upper age limit on those who are eligible for the mRNA vaccine, provided that they are aged 16 or above and are in good health.
The second batch of 100,000 mRNA vaccines is expected to arrive by the end of March.

400,000 doses of Sinopharm’s vaccines arrive
The second batch of the 400,000 doses of Sinopharm’s inactivated vaccine arrived in Macau yesterday afternoon.
Director of the Health Bureau (SSM), Lei Chin Ion, yesterday told the press that the SAR has already received a total of over 600,425 doses of vaccine, which is enough for over 300,000 residents.
The doctor also added that a few of those who have been vaccinated have had mild adverse reactions such as fever and dizziness.
For Lei, the current vaccination appointment numbers in Macau is considered satisfactory. MDT