For such people who have received their primary vaccination course and one booster dose, there is no risk in having further jabs but the returns are slight, the WHO's vaccine experts say.

Dr Zaliha Mustafa says it is to improve the process for the future.

The prime minister says that the procurement was made by the health minister at the time without the agreement of the attorney-general.

China has so far insisted on using only Chinese-made vaccines - which are of the inactivated virus type and not based on the Western mRNA technology - for its own population.

After widespread protests and a relentless rise in cases, China began dismantling its 'zero-Covid' regime.

The shipment comes amid Beijing dismantling its strict 'zero-Covid' regime of lockdowns, which has led to a surge of cases that caught a fragile health system unprepared.

The IMF says economic risks for China were tilted to the downside, due to headwinds from a global slowdown, higher energy prices and tighter global financial conditions.

China, which has pursued a strict zero-Covid policy that results in frequent snap lockdowns, has recently seen a surge in cases with more than 23,000 new infections - the most since April.

Omicron-tailored shots made by Pfizer and Moderna Inc have already been greenlit by several countries, including in the US for adults and, more recently, for children as young as 5 years.

Hospitalisation numbers across many countries in the 27-nation bloc, as well as Britain, have gone up in recent weeks.

Indonesia's food and drugs agency greenlighted the use of Walvax Biotechnology's mRNA vaccine, which has been in development for more than two years and targets the original strain of the coronavirus.

It says it's important that member states prepare for the rollout of vaccines, especially the adaptive vaccines, to prevent further spread of the disease in Europe.