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PETALING JAYA: Putrajaya will sign a new agreement with Pfizer to purchase some 32 million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine.
Science, Technology and Innovation Minister Khairy Jamaluddin said the agreement will be signed this week, while Pfizer has also offered to supply more vaccines to vaccinate 20% more of the population, although this is still being negotiated.
“For the 32 million doses of Pfizer, which will be signed this week, their delivery will be in 2021. Everything,” he said today at a joint press conference with Health Minister Dr. Adham Baba.
Malaysia has received around 520,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine so far and is expected to rise to 1 million by the end of the month, with another batch arriving on Thursday.
Meanwhile, 200,000 finished doses of the Sinovac vaccine will arrive in Malaysia, divided into two batches on Friday and next Friday. The vaccine will be used in the first phase of vaccinations of the National Covid-19 Immunization Program.
Khairy also said Malaysia could end negotiations with Johnson & Johnson for its single-dose vaccine, as it can only be delivered next year.
Instead, he said, Putrajaya is negotiating with CanSino Biologics Inc for its vaccine, which is also single-dose and may arrive this year.
Meanwhile, Adham said Malaysia does not yet plan to discontinue use of the AstraZeneca vaccine, despite Austria’s decision to do so while investigating the death of one person and the illness of another after the vaccine was administered.
He said the National Drug Regulatory Agency had only granted conditional approval to the vaccine and will make sure the vaccine is safe for use here.
“Our priority is to protect the recipients,” he said.
Meanwhile, Khairy said he has received more than 200 complaints of jumping the vaccine queue since last week, adding that he has investigated and addressed each one.
He said that there was a case where everyone who was at the front in the area had already been vaccinated, so the excess vaccinations were offered to those who were not at the front.
Khairy clarified that all non-first-line appointments have since been canceled, while the remaining vaccines would be redistributed to other areas that had not yet finished with first-line vaccination.
“Perhaps the planning was not clear enough, which made them decide to give the remaining doses to people who are not on the first line list. But we have asked them to redistribute the additional doses to other hospitals or vaccine centers. “
