Petaling Jaya, Apr 27 (Sin Chew Daily) — Dr Li Jun, head of the COVID-19 medical team from China currently in Malaysia, compliments Malaysia's effort to contain the pandemic.

The COVID-19 situation in Malaysia has been somewhat under control since April 16,. The numbers of daily new positive cases are below a hundred, while the numbers of discharged cases are higher.

"Malaysia is successful in curbing the outbreak after enforcing the Movement Control Order (MCO). The curve is stable and currently moving towards a downtrend," said Dr Li, who is the chief physician of the Integrated Chinese and Western Emergency Medicine and vice-president of Guangdong Provincial Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine.

Li was with two other doctors from China—Dr Sun Jiufeng, associate chief technician in virology and deputy director of General Study Office of Guangdong Provincial Institute of Public Health, and Dr Wen Miaoyun, associate chief physician of the intensive care unit at Guangdong Provincial People's Hospital—during a live telecast on Pocketimes on Sunday.

Dr Sun described Malaysia's willingness to join China in the third phase of clinical trials to develop the vaccine as an encouraging news for both countries. Malaysia would be able to start using the vaccine earlier than other countries, he said.

"We look forward to establishing collaborative ties with Malaysia. Placing several types of vaccines in Malaysia to carry out third phase clinical trials here will help speed up the containment of the outbreak.

"We heard from the media that Director-General of Health Datuk Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said Malaysia was willing to join the third phase of clinical trials. This is great news. In normal situation vaccine is developed in another country for third phase of trial.

"This will be able to ascertain whether the vaccine can be used in Malaysia," he said.

Dr Sun explained that if Malaysia were to join China to develop vaccine in the third phase of clinical trials, Malaysia would be able to confirm whether the vaccine is suitable for Malaysians during the trials.

This means that Malaysia would be using the vaccine earlier than other countries by cutting short the time spent on conducting another clinical trial again, he said.

"This will help ease the government's burden," he added.

Dr Sun also praised Malaysia for its exemplary preventive measures to contain the COVID-19 pandemic.

"Without effective drugs, we can only rely on vaccines to curb the spread of COVID-19," he said.

He said China has developed two types of vaccines at the second phase of trials in April.

"If the vaccines are effective, we can enter the third phase of clinical trials," he added.

Basically, a vaccine will take up to two years to develop.

"But we can't wait so long because of COVID-19. China is intensifying its speed to develop the vaccine. If unblinding of the trial can be done in May after third phase, the vaccines would be ready for the market soon," he concluded.