KUALA LUMPUR (Jan 4): The Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation (MOSTI) has stressed that the Covid-19 vaccine will not cause long-term harmful side effects on people’s health.

Deputy Minister Ahmad Amzad Hashim said the vaccine had been clinically tested and would be regulated by the National Pharmaceutical Regulatory Agency (NPRA) of the Ministry of Health (MoH).

“All vaccines have side effects. What is important is that the side effects are not serious or harmful. So far, based on the data we received, the vaccine does not have serious side effects.

"Most side effects are temporary, such as injection pain; some may have a fever or nausea,” he said when met after appearing as a guest on Bernama Radio's Jendela Fikir programme today.

Ahmad Amzad said the ministry will channel accurate information on the vaccine to convince and eliminate society’s scepticism, thus achieving the government’s target to provide the vaccine to 70% of Malaysians in the first quarter of this year (1H21).

Malaysia has signed an agreement with Pfizer-BioNTech to procure 12.8 million vaccine doses, and another 6.4 million doses will be provided by AstraZeneca as well as several other suppliers.