Malaysia to receive first batch of Pfizer vaccines on Feb. 26 - report

KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - Malaysia is expected to receive the first batch of Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccines on Feb. 26, a senior health official said on Monday, according to a report by national newswire Bernama.

In November, Malaysia announced it had agreed to buy 12.8 million doses of the vaccine, jointly developed by the U.S. drugmaker and German partners BioNTech.

Under the deal, Pfizer will deliver the first one million doses in the first quarter of 2021, with 1.7 million, 5.8 million and 4.3 million doses to follow in subsequent quarters.

Once delivered, the first batch of vaccines will be distributed nationwide over a period of 1-2 weeks, Malaysia's director-general of health Noor Hisham Abdullah was quoted as saying by Bernama.

In January, Malaysia signed a second deal with Pfizer to secure an additional 12.2 million doses of their vaccine.

The Southeast Asian nation also signed agreements to secure 18.4 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines produced by Russia's Gamaleya Research Institute and China's Sinovac.

Malaysia has been struggling with a sharp spike in coronavirus cases in recent weeks, as the cumulative total passed the 200,000 mark including 760 deaths as of Sunday.

(Reporting by Joseph Sipalan; Editing by Martin Petty)