PETALING JAYA (THE STAR/ASIA NEWS NETWORK) - One million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine that were donated by the United States government arrived in Malaysia on Monday (July 5).

The Raya Airways aircraft TH384 carrying the doses arrived at the Sultan Abdul Aziz Shah Airport in Subang, Selangor, at 8.10am.

National Immunisation Programme coordinating minister Khairy Jamaluddin said Malaysia hopes to continue working with US and other countries to secure access for more vaccines.

US Ambassador to Malaysia Brian McFeeters also said the US was committed to working with Malaysia to support its National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme.

On Sunday (July 4), Foreign Minister Hishammuddin Hussein thanked the US for donating one million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine.

"On behalf of the Government of Malaysia, I would like to once again express my sincere gratitude to my counterpart, Antony Blinken (US Secretary of State) and the US Government for the generous contribution of its Covid-19 vaccines," Datuk Seri Hishammuddin said in a statement.

The doses are from an initial batch of 80 million US-made vaccines the Biden administration pledged last month to share globally amid concern about the disparity in vaccination rates between advanced and developing nations.

Malaysia is expected to receive a total of 12 million doses of various Covid-19 vaccines in July.

So far, a total of 9,006,715 doses of Covid-19 vaccine have been administered in the country.

In a tweet on Monday (July 5), Health Minister Dr Adham Baba said 206,015 doses were administered on Sunday.

Some 6.38 million people had received their first dose of vaccine while 2.6 million were fully vaccinated with both doses.