Now that the vaccination process is up to speed, the government is looking at different approaches to make the vaccine more efficient.

A more effective method

According to New Straits Times, the government is closely studying the the mix-and-match vaccines approach, where two different brands of vaccinations are given to an individual.

Khairy Jamaluddin, the COVID-19 National Immunisation Programme (NIP) coordinating minister, said that a lot of countries are using the method, which is called the heterologous vaccination where two different vaccines are used.

By administering AstraZeneca as the first dose and Pfizer–BioNTech for the second dose, the method is said to boost efficacy against different variants.

Khairy said that the government has obtained real-world data which backs up the claim.

"We have real-world data that we received from Germany regarding heterologous vaccination, using AstraZeneca for the first dose and Pfizer as the second dose, which has been shown to boost the antibody and proven more effective against variants.

"More data is coming in and we are monitoring this closely. We do not want to make a quick decision on this before getting more data," he was quoted as saying.

Khairy told the daily that once more research has been done, he will advise the Special Committee on COVID-19 Vaccine Supply Access Guarantee, which he co-chairs with Health Minister Datuk Seri Dr Adham Baba, and implement the heterologous vaccination.