Health Ministry says no placebos used in vaccinations under national Covid-19 vaccination program, viral video claims | Malaysia

PUTRAJAYA, 26 January – The Ministry of Health (MOH) has confirmed that no placebo is used in the National Covid-19 Immunization Program (PICK).

In a statement today, the Department of Health said claims made in a viral video that placebos were used in PICK were not true.

He said that placebos, which did not contain “active substances”, were used in clinical studies, where recipients would be randomly divided into two groups, and one would receive the active substance, while the other would receive a placebo.

“This situation is only used during clinical trials, not for registered products used in the PICK,” the ministry said.

He further pointed out that all pharmaceutical products, including vaccines approved by the Medicines Control Authority (DCA), were produced by manufacturers who complied with international standards such as Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP), the Pharmaceutical Inspection Cooperation Program (PIC/S) and the World Health Program Organization (WHO).

“The monitoring of the quality of the product is done throughout the manufacturing process, where quality control tests will be carried out on each batch before being marketed, and for registered products, it contains only active ingredients and excipients that have been certified by DCA for commercialization, and not a placebo.” “, we read in the press release.

He added that the National Drug Regulatory Agency (NPRA) has also assessed manufacturing documents and carried out cold chain inspections for each batch of Covid-19 vaccine products through a strict batch release process, in order to ensure the content and quality of vaccine products.

The Ministry of Health also asked how the party in the video obtained a sample of Covid-19 vaccine and carried out a test on its contents, when in fact Covid-19 vaccines were only authorized to be sold and provided only to the government and authorized by the government. parties.

As such, the Ministry of Health said it considers the claims made in the video to be false news and an attempt to confuse the public and tarnish the integrity of the ministry, adding that it would file reports to the police and the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission on the matter. — Bernama