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KUALA LUMPUR – Malaysia will begin administering Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine starting in February, with Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin among the first to receive the vaccine ahead of the front-line.
The government will also purchase enough vaccines to cover more than 80 percent of the population.
“To convince people that the vaccine obtained is safe and effective, I will be among the first people to receive the Covid-19 vaccine,” said Tan Sri Muhyiddin in a televised speech on Tuesday (December 22).
The vaccines will then be administered to the front-line before being administered to high-risk groups, such as the elderly, as well as those with non-communicable diseases and chronic respiratory diseases, he said.
The government also signed an agreement with the pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca to purchase 6.4 million doses of its Covid-19 vaccine for 10 percent of the population, the premier added.
This means that Malaysia now has vaccines for 40 percent of its population.
Last month, it signed a deal with Pfizer for 12.8 million doses of the vaccine for 20% of the population, and a deal with Covax to cover another 10%.
Covax is an alliance of countries that pool their resources to ensure the equitable global distribution of Covid-19 vaccines.
The government is also in final negotiations with China’s Sinovac and CanSino, and Russia’s Gamaleya Institute to secure an additional supply of vaccines, Muhyiddin said.
In total, there will be enough vaccines for more than 80 percent or 26.5 million of the population at a cost of RM2.05 billion (S $ 675 million), he said.
The government originally aimed to provide vaccines to 70 percent of Malaysians, he added.
Science, Technology and Innovation Minister Khairy Jamaluddin tweeted on Tuesday that after signing deals with Covax, Pfizer and AstraZeneca, and finalizing deals with Sinovac, CanSino and Gamaleya, Malaysia will have vaccines for nearly 83 percent of the population in RM2.05 billion. The vaccines will be provided free to Malaysians, according to a poster he tweeted.
Malaysia is currently battling a third wave of the Covid-19 outbreak, with 2,018 cases and one death recorded on Monday.
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