The Malaysian Ministry of Health ("MOH Malaysia") and the Indonesian Food and Drug Administration (BPOM) approved heterologous booster Convidecia CanSinoBIO. Convidecia is recommended by the Malaysian Ministry of Health as a heterologous booster for those aged 18 years and over who have received two previous doses of the COVID-19 vaccine.

For the Convidecia Vaccine, the efficacy for protection against all COVID-19 symptoms was 65.3% and for protection against severe COVID-19 cases was 90.1%.

Meanwhile, BPOM recommends that adults who have been vaccinated against COVID-19 choose the Convidecia or other mRNA vaccine as a booster vaccine. Convidecia has received authorization for emergency use from BPOM in September 2021. The addition of the Covid-19 vaccine is expected to further assist the government's efforts to achieve herd immunity.

In Indonesia, this vaccine has been registered by PT Bio Farma as a EUA license holder. BPOM collaborates with experts in ensuring compliance with vaccine safety, efficacy and quality standards.

Experts in pharmacology, immunology, clinicians, pharmacists, epidemiology, virology, and biomedicine who are members of the National Committee for the Special Assessment of the Corona Virus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) Vaccine, the Indonesia Technical Advisory Group on Immunization (ITAGI), and the association of clinicians concerned have reviewed this vaccine.

What is a Heterologous Booster?
Convidecia claims to be the first and only adenovirus vector vaccine to be included in the heterologous vaccination program in China. Heterologous booster vaccination has been shown to enhance the immune response and protect against other variants.

Recent studies have shown that this kind of booster is capable of producing greater neutralizing antibody responses compared to homologous vaccine boosters or heterologous recombinant protein vaccine boosters.

A recent study conducted by the Jiangsu Province Center for Disease Control and Prevention showed that individuals who had been given two doses of the Covid-19 vaccine and added a single dose of a heterologous booster had an antibody level of up to 5 times.

The Convidecia booster vaccine itself can also produce a strong CD8+T cell response. It plays an important role in killing virus-infected cells, without serious side effects. This vaccine is also claimed to induce significant humoral and cellular immune responses, thus providing dual protection. In addition, cost-effectiveness is also claimed to be better.

Another clinical trial conducted by the CAS Key Laboratory of Pathogenic Microbiology and Immunology in China also found that people vaccinated with Convidecia 4 – 8 months after the two doses of the vaccine resulted in neutralization and antibody levels against the Omicron variant 6 times higher.