SINGAPORE - The 16-year-old boy who suffered cardiac arrest after taking his Covid-19 vaccine has been transferred out of the intensive care unit and his medical condition remains stable, said the Ministry of Health on Thursday (July 15).
MOH told The Straits Times that the patient has been transferred to a high dependency ward in the coronary care unit for close monitoring and observation.
On July 5, MOH said that the boy collapsed following a weightlifting session six days after his first dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech/Comirnaty Covid-19 vaccine.
"We are still investigating the underlying cause. Our priority is the well-being of the patient, and he is under the close medical care of an excellent team in the National University Hospital," said MOH on Thursday.
"Our hopes and well wishes are with him and his family for a steady recovery," it added.
"We urge the public not to spread unsubstantiated information which may add to the family's grief or cause public alarm," it added.
In Facebook post on Wednesday, MOH said that it was aware of the "speculation in Facebook, Telegram and WhatsApp chat groups" featuring an obituary that led to the conjecture that the teenager had died from a "vaccine-related severe adverse event".
It clarified that the boy's death was not due to the vaccine, and that the two cases were unrelated.
KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia reported 13,215 new COVID-19 cases on Thursday (Jul 15), setting a record for the third consecutive day.
This is the country's fifth record caseload in the last seven days and the first time it has registered more than 13,000 daily COVID-19 cases.
Klang Valley once again accounted for more than half of the cases, with 6,120 in Selangor and 1,499 in Kuala Lumpur. The neighbouring state of Negeri Sembilan reported 1,603 cases.
Johor reported 599 cases while Penang had 509 infections.
Health director-general Noor Hisham Abdullah said 60.9 per cent of the new cases were asymptomatic while 35.1 per cent had mild symptoms.
Those with lung infections, lung infections requiring oxygen and those requiring ventilation amounted to 531 cases.
There were also 110 more fatalities, taking the national death toll to 6,613. Fifteen of them were classified as "brought in dead" as they did not die in hospital.
A total of 885 patients are warded in the intensive care unit, with 432 requiring respiratory support.
The health ministry said new coronavirus variants, including the Delta variant, were more contagious and could spread among close contacts in five seconds.
This is compared to the minimum of 15 minutes needed for transmission of previous variants.
The new variants can also be spread through "airborne" transmission, said Dr Noor Hisham.
He also emphasised that vaccination was the solution to the COVID-19 pandemic and urged more Malaysians to get their jabs.
Malaysia entered its third nationwide lockdown on Jun 1, shortly after it breached the 9,000 mark for new cases for the first time on May 29.
Numbers reached record highs again on Jul 9 and Jul 10, with more than 9,100 cases on each day before it breached the 11,000 mark for the first time on Tuesday.
As of Thursday, Malaysia has reported a total of 880,782 COVID-19 cases, of which 108,369 are currently active or infectious.
KUALA LUMPUR - A suggestion on Thursday (July 15) by Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin to ease restrictions for those who are fully vaccinated has raised concerns among health experts who believe they may still be able to transmit the virus.
The government is projecting a transition into the second phase of its four-phase Covid-19 exit plan as early as August, even though the number of daily infections exceeded 13,000 on Thursday, the third consecutive day the country notched record high infections.
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SINGAPORE: Singapore citizens, permanent residents and long-term pass holders who received their COVID-19 vaccination overseas can get their immunisation records updated in the national registry here when they return, said the Ministry of Health (MOH) on Thursday (Jul 15).
This option is open to people who received the Pfizer-BioNTech/Comirnaty and Moderna vaccines, as well as those listed on the World Health Organization’s Emergency Use Listing. The AstraZeneca and Sinovac COVID-19 vaccines are among those on the WHO's list.
They will also need a positive serology test result in Singapore.
"The positive serology test provides an additional means to validate the vaccination status of an individual by detecting that antibodies have been mounted against the virus," said MOH.
"Upon positive serology test result, the individual’s vaccination records will subsequently be reflected on HealthHub after a few days."
Serology testing is not required for Singapore residents who received their COVID-19 vaccination in Singapore, the ministry noted.
6.5 MILLION COVID-19 VACCINES ADMINISTERED
Singapore has made "good progress" in its national COVID-19 vaccination programme, said MOH, adding that about 6.5 million doses have been administered as of Jul 14.
About 4 million people have received at least the first dose of the vaccine, said the ministry. Of these, 2.4 million have completed the full vaccination regimen.
"Vaccination remains a key enabler in our fight against COVID-19 and its ability to help Singapore reopen safely can only be felt when we can collectively achieve a high level of population coverage for vaccination," said MOH.
The ministry encouraged those who have not booked their vaccination appointments to register their interest via vaccine.gov.sg.
Singapore reported 42 new locally transmitted COVID-19 infections as of noon on Thursday, of which 33 belong to a KTV cluster.
BANGKOK: AstraZeneca has asked Thailand to extend the timeline for the delivery of 61 million doses of its COVID-19 vaccine by five months, a deputy minister said on Thursday (Jul 15), a move likely to disrupt further the country's sluggish vaccine rollout.
Deputy Health Minister Sathit Pitutacha said AstraZeneca currently had the capacity to produce 15 million doses of vaccine per month at its production facility in Thailand and that capacity could expand in the future.
AstraZeneca did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Sathit's statement made during an interview on the MCOT television station.
But the company seeking to delay delivery points to a slow production ramp-up at its local manufacturing partner, which had initial production and delivery issues, even as AstraZeneca reassured it would be back on track from this month to meet its supply commitments to Thailand and other Southeast Asian nations.
AstraZeneca had promised to deliver 40 per cent of what is produced to Thailand, Sathit said, adding that Thailand will ask the company for more doses.
"We must negotiate with them, because in this situation we need more vaccine," Sathit said.
"We want 10 million doses because the original plan was 10 million doses," he said referring to the previous monthly delivery target.
Responding to a request for comment on the proposal to restrict exports, AstraZeneca said on Wednesday its Thai-manufactured vaccine "is of critical importance" to neighbouring countries where the pandemic is also accelerating.
"We are actively working with the government in Thailand and governments across Southeast Asia to continue to deliver equitable vaccine access to the region," the statement said.
Thailand is suffering its worst COVID-19 outbreak yet and reported a record 98 coronavirus deaths on Thursday taking total fatalities to 3,032 since the pandemic began last year.
The country's COVID-19 taskforce also reported 9,186 new coronavirus cases, bringing total infections to 372,215.
Thailand's main vaccine rollout started last month and only about 5 per cent of its more than 66 million people have been fully vaccinated.
KUALA LUMPUR - Malaysia has for the third day running reported a record number of daily Covid-19 infections with 13,215 cases on Thursday (July 15), the same day a top health official warned that the highly transmissible Delta variant could spread just by fleeting contact.
“In the past, we learnt that a person can get infected from another individual through close contact of less than 1m over a duration of 15 minutes. Now, we are informed that the Delta variant can infect someone in just 15 seconds, and the virus is airborne,” Director-General of Health Noor Hisham Abdullah told reporters.
Cases have been soaring despite the fact that the country has been under a lockdown since June 1.
To date, the country’s most populous state, Selangor, remains at the epicentre of infections with cumulative cases standing at 307,094. The state accounted for more than half of the daily total on Thursday with 6,120 cases.
Malaysia as a whole has reported 880,782 cases since the onset of the pandemic early last year.
Dr Noor Hisham had earlier warned that the number of new cases could increase over the next two weeks because the highly infectious Delta variant had been detected in almost every state.
Despite the record number of cases, the government on Thursday disclosed that it is considering relaxing movement restrictions for the fully vaccinated, including allowing them to travel and to dine-in, projecting that the country may move into the second phase of its four-phase Covid-19 exit plan from as early as August.
The government is also attempting to ramp vaccinations, announcing that it will soon allow anyone above 60 to walk into any general practitioner clinic participating in the National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme to receive a jab.
Health Minister Adham Baba said the pilot project would begin in Selangor and the capital, Kuala Lumpur, before being expanded nationwide.
Presently, about 700 GPs in Selangor and KL are involved in the initiative, he said.
Dr Adham estimated that 300,000 doses could be administered daily if all GPs participated in the programme.
“We have decided that 2,229 private clinics or general practitioners in Selangor, as well as 1,254 in KL can join us to give vaccinations,” he told reporters on Thursday.
The Malaysian government is also attempting to ramp vaccinations. PHOTO: REUTERS
“The reason we decided this was because we have noticed there are still a number of individuals over the age of 60 who have yet to be vaccinated,” he said.
The implementation date of the initiative will be announced later, the Health Ministry said in a statement.
The ministry has also decided that vaccination centres for the industrial sector could operate 24 hours a day in Selangor, KL and Seremban.
Dr Adham also said the east coast state of Kelantan would stop administering the first doses of Chinese vaccine Sinovac from Sunday due to ample supplies of the Pfizer-BioNTech/Comirnaty vaccine.
“Basically it is because we have sufficient supply of the Pfizer vaccines, of more than 44 million doses, so now the main vaccine that will be used is the Pfizer vaccine,” he said, adding that other states will follow suit and rely mainly on it.
KUALA LUMPUR: The drug ivermectin, which has all along been used for veterinary treatment of parasites, has come under the spotlight after calls for it to be included as part of Malaysia’s list of treatments for COVID-19.
The focus on the drug came after news reports in April 2020, citing how researchers at Australia's Monash University had experimented with the drug and found that a single dose could stop the COVID-19 virus from growing in cell culture within 48 hours.
Malaysia's health ministry announced on Jun 5 that ivermectin trials have been initiated. These trials will be done by the ministry and Institute for Clinical Research (ICR) at 12 ministry hospitals.
The trial was approved by the ministry’s Medical Research and Ethics Committee on May 25 and the first patient was enrolled at the end of May. The ministry expects the trial to be concluded by September.
Meanwhile, calls for ivermectin to be approved for COVID-19 use have continued to grow.
In early June, a senior citizen even lodged a police report in Johor state, accusing the health ministry's director-general Noor Hisham Abdullah of committing a crime by refusing to adopt ivermectin as a treatment for COVID-19 patients.
A loose coalition of medical and consumer groups, calling itself the Malaysian Alliance for Effective Covid Control (MAECC) has also issued a statement urging the government to include ivermectin in its list of drugs used to treat the coronavirus.
In an online press conference on Jun 21, the coalition called for the government to fast-track the use of ivermectin, highlighting that the drug has been in use over the last four decades, with more than 3.7 billion doses prescribed.
The attention on ivermectin is not only happening in Malaysia. In Indonesia, pharmacies are reportedly running out of the drug, following viral social media posts touting its potential as a coronavirus treatment.
Here's what you need to know about ivermectin, and why the Malaysian health authorities are adopting a considered approach:
WHAT HAS IVERMECTIN BEEN USED FOR?
Dr Vellayan Subramaniam, a long-serving veterinarian and former deputy director of Malaysia's national zoo, explained that ivermectin was first discovered in the 1970s. It became more commonly used from the early 1980s.
“This was first used for food livestock, and later, it was extended to equines, then companion animals.
“Later we extended ivermectin to exotic animals and pets, except tortoises and turtles for which the drug is toxic. Some dog breeds are also susceptible to ivermectin intoxication,” he said.
A bottle of generic Ivermectin as an injectable solution, about to be used by Dr Vellayan for parasite control on a rabbit. (Photo: Dr Vellayan Subramaniam)
The veterinarian explained that it was common for drugs to be repurposed, even across species from animal to human and vice-versa.
“This is what you call off-label use. We already use ivermectin to treat parasite infections in humans like lymphatic filariasis, caused by worm infection.
“We also use it to treat ectoparasites, meaning parasites that live on your body surface by applying ivermectin as a topical solution.”
Hence, he said that it was not impossible for laboratory researchers to discover ivermectin as a potential treatment for the current pandemic.
The World Health Organization (WHO) and other leading regulatory agencies such as the United States Food and Drug Administration and European Medicines Agency have cautioned that there is insufficient evidence on ivermectin's efficacy in treating COVID-19.
FILE PHOTO: A logo is pictured outside a building of the World Health Organization (WHO) during an executive board meeting on update on the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak, in Geneva, Switzerland, April 6, 2021. REUTERS/Denis Balibouse
In March this year, WHO stated that current evidence on the use of ivermectin for COVID-19 patients was inconclusive. Pending further data, it recommended that the drug only be used within clinical trials.
WHO explained that due to the increased international attention on the drug as a potential treatment, a guideline development group of experts from multiple specialties was formed. The group reviewed pooled data from several randomised controlled trials.
“They determined that the evidence on whether ivermectin reduces mortality, need for mechanical ventilation, need for hospital admission and time to clinical improvement in COVID-19 patients is of ‘very low certainty’,” the WHO stated, explaining this was due to the small sample sizes and methodology limitations of available trial data.
WHAT IS THE MALAYSIAN HEALTH MINISTRY'S POSITION?
The health ministry is in the midst of studying ivermectin’s use for COVID-19 treatment.
In an interview with Bernama on Jul 10, Dr Noor Hisham explained that the ministry was studying the drug’s effectiveness and its side effects for COVID-19 patients in Category Three (those with lung infections) to Category Five (critical with multiple organ complications).
Malaysia health director-general Noor Hisham Abdullah. (File photo: Bernama)
On Jul 11, the ministry posted on its Facebook page that ivermectin is only allowed to be used on an off-label basis, with close supervision by certified doctors.
“Until now, clinical studies’ results are insufficient to prove that ivermectin can treat or prevent COVID-19, only vaccines have been proven to prevent COVID-19,” the ministry stated.
The ministry also listed some side effects from the drug’s usage, including skin rash which might necessitate hospitalisation, nausea, vomiting, stomach distress and diarrhea, swelling, sudden low blood pressure and liver damage, as well as seizures and disorientation.
IVERMECTIN AN "IMPORTANT, USEFUL OPTION": MEDICINE ASSOCIATION
In the meantime, the proponents of ivermectin are saying that the trial process should be expedited.
Dr Vijaendreh Subramaniam, who is the president of the Malaysian Association of Advancement of Functional & Interdisciplinary Medicine (MAAFIM) said that waiting for the completion of the trial in September might be too late given the urgency of the crisis. MAAFIM is a participating body in the MAECC group.
In a Facebook post, Malaysia 's health director-general Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah urged Malaysians to comply with health protocols as there are concerns that the ICU hospital beds in the country may not be enough to cope with the number of patients. (Photo: Facebook/Noor Hisham Abdullah)
When interviewed by CNA, Dr Vijaendreh noted that Malaysia’s COVID-19 crisis was becoming worse by the day.
“I think it is a situation that needs urgent addressing,” Dr VIjaendreh said, adding that ivermectin was already being used in some countries to treat the pandemic.
“The Czech and Slovak republics have seen very good responses, while India, at the height of its massive crisis, also used the drug to contain the disease too,” he noted.
Dr Vijaendreh opined that Malaysia is currently at the same stage of the COVID-19 crisis where India was at two months ago.
“But we must be very clear, ivermectin is not a magic bullet. It doesn't mean that if we use ivermectin, all our COVID-19 problems go away,” Dr Vijaendreh said.
“But it is emerging as an important, useful option to be included in our treatment arsenal, especially in the early stages and as a prophylactic (to prevent disease),” Dr Vijaendreh explained.
On MAECC’s part, he said, the coalition would continue to engage the ministry to have ivermectin implemented earlier.
Residents register for coronavirus testing at a private hospital in Sunway, on the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia on Oct 7, 2020. (Photo: AP/Vincent Thian)
“We had a meeting with the ministry a few days ago on this issue, and we’ll continue to engage them, but the matter is in the ministry’s hands.
“But we will share information and data as it emerges, and hopefully they’ll be persuaded to use this approach to try and contain the pandemic as soon as possible,” Dr Vijaendreh said.
