PUTRAJAYA (THE STAR/ASIA NEWS NETWORK) - Malaysia received 200,000 doses of the CanSino Covid-19 vaccine on Friday (Aug 20) - the first shipment of 3.5 million doses ordered from China's CanSino Biologics.

The vaccine shipment arrived at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport at 7.50am in a MASkargo flight from Beijing.

At the airport to witness the arrival of the vaccines were Science, Technology and Innovation Ministry secretary-general Siti Hamisah Tapsir and Health Ministry secretary-general Mohd Shafiq Abdullah.

CanSino is a single-dose vaccine and its usage in Malaysia was conditionally approved for use by the Drug Control Authority on June 15.

Solution Biologics is the product registration holder for CanSino in Malaysia.

So far, Malaysia has been utilising three vaccines for its National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme - Pfizer-BioNTech/Cominarty, Sinovac and AstraZeneca. All three require two doses for full vaccination.

Malaysia has also granted approval for Johnson & Johnson's Janssen Covid-19 vaccine. It is another single-dose vaccine.

The single-dose regimen will make it easier for the government to vaccinate people in remote locations.

Malaysia has been ramping up its vaccination drive, which started in February. As at Thursday, 54 per cent of the population have received at least one dose of a vaccine and 36 per cent are fully vaccinated.