Several users have claimed that the purported vaccine manufacturer on their MySejahtera digital certificate does not match the manufacturer named in the National Pharmaceutical Regulatory Agency (NPRA) lot release certificate based on the same batch number. The phenomenon was first reported by CodeBlue, which cited four Malaysians who said they have found the discrepancy between manufacturers after checking with the NPRA.
One of the users, Belinda Loh, said her vaccination certificate on MySejahtera listed South Korea’s SK Bioscience as the manufacturer of her first AstraZeneca dose with the batch number ABX6083, while her second dose with batch number PV46701 says that it was manufactured by Astra Zeneca UK. However, when Loh crossed-referenced both the batch numbers with the NPRA lot release certificates, Loh found that the manufacturers did not match. Instead, both batches were listed as being manufactured in Sweden under the Vaxzevria brand name.
The name of the manufacturer of my second AstraZeneca vaccine dose on my digital Covid-19 vaccine cert does not match NPRA's lot release cert, based on the lot number.
CodeBlue is asking MOH to explain how such discrepancies occurred, and how many people/ 💉 lots are affected. pic.twitter.com/xXNU2ghcI4
— Boo Su-Lyn (@boosulyn) October 20, 2021
Loh contacted NPRA to get clarification on the issue and was told by an officer that she had also received plenty of complaints about the issue. The agency says it “confirmed that it is not NPRA’s fault” and asked her to contact MySejahtera to report the discrepancy. When contacting the latter, an officer from the app’s help desk informed Loh that a report would be lodged on her behalf.
Upon checking this for ourselves, we discovered that several members of the Lowyat.Net team have found that one or both of their AstraZeneca or Sinovac doses had different manufacturers listed by NPRA. Twitter user @zurairi even said that his digital certificate incorrectly displayed Sinovac as his vaccine, and was also issued a random batch number.
Forget manufacturer, my cert doesn't even have the correct vaccine (suddenly changed to Sinovac), complete with a random batch number that's not mine
— Zurairi A.R. (@zurairi) October 20, 2021
If you want to check for yourself, you can find the batch number and manufacturer of your doses by generating a PDF of your certificate on MySejahtera, and look up the batch numbers on NPRA’s website. It should be noted that whichever manufacturer that is listed should have no effect on vaccine efficacy as long as the brand was approved by national health bodies.
Those who are affected by AstraZeneca vaccine manufacturers are mostly those who plan to travel to the UK as test and quarantine exemptions currently only apply to recipients of specific AstraZeneca vaccines, such as India’s AstraZeneca Covishield and Sweden’s AstraZeneca Vaxzevria.
(Source: CodeBlue)
