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KUALA LUMPUR (Dec. 9): Science, Technology and Innovation Minister Khairy Jamaluddin has denied veteran lawmaker Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah’s claim that Malaysia’s vaccine deal with Pfizer cost the government RM3 billion, including RM1 billion. for transportation and storage.
Khairy also rejected Razaleigh’s claim that Putrajaya has used the entire RM3 billion allocation to cover only 20% of the population.
“Based on our current negotiations to acquire a vaccine portfolio, we are still within our RM3 billion estimate to acquire sufficient doses to cover 70% of our population.
“The Pfizer deal clearly has not exhausted the entire allocation as recklessly claimed by the Gua Musang MP,” he added in a statement in response to an earlier statement from Razaleigh.
Disputing Razaleigh’s estimate that the cost per dose of the vaccine is RM 234 (based on the assumed cost of RM 3 billion), the minister said: “This is just ridiculous.”
“Although I cannot disclose the exact price of the Pfizer vaccine, which is subject to a confidentiality agreement, I mentioned it earlier in my response to [Sungai Pelek Assemblyman] YB Ronnie Liu that the cost is significantly less than RM100 per dose, which includes delivery to multiple vaccination sites.
“Regarding Malaysia’s ultra-cold capabilities, also mentioned earlier in my response to YB Ronnie Liu, we already have -80 degree Celsius freezers across the country.
“For example, our public universities and public research institutions have more than 125 ultra-cold freezers. If these freezers cannot be redeployed, we will arrange for the purchase of additional ultra-cold freezers, ”he added.
Khairy, in his statement, said that the development of Covid-19 vaccines has been able to accelerate due to, among others, advances in science and technology.
He explained that one of the factors that contributed to the rapid development of Covid-19 vaccines was that science and technology have evolved quite significantly over the past decade with new platforms such as messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) and vaccines based on adenoviral vectors, which took place before the pandemic and were quickly adapted to develop a vaccine for Covid-19.
“Global collaboration has also helped. The rapid release of the SARs-CoV-2 genome in January 2020 helped accelerate vaccine development. Ultimately, it is also due to the unprecedented amount of money that has been invested to develop a vaccine that can help end the global pandemic, “he said.
Razaleigh, in his statement, had also said that there are experts who feel that governments should consider alternatives to the vaccine to end the pandemic. The statement refers to Dr. Mike Yeadon, former vice president of Pfizer, who states that vaccines are not necessary as people are gaining natural group immunity.
In addressing this, Khairy argued that attempting to acquire natural herd immunity will result in many people becoming ill, pushing the national health system beyond its limit.
“Although our health care capacity is sufficient to handle the current number of positive cases, we must do everything we can to protect people from getting sick and losing lives unnecessarily. Allowing people to get sick and possibly die is extremely irresponsible,” he said .
Khairy added that Yeadon’s opinion has been flagged as inaccurate on Health Feedback, which is a member of the WHO-led Vaccine Safety Net project.
To alleviate public concerns, Khairy assured that all vaccines purchased by the government will go through scrutiny to ensure they are safe, effective and stable.
He explained that all vaccines will need to be approved and registered by the National Drug Regulatory Agency (NPRA) before vaccines start in Malaysia, “and we have some of the most rigorous standards in the world.”
“Our current focus is the safety, efficacy and stability of their Covid-19 vaccine. That is why we will vigorously advocate for the independence of the NPRA to evaluate Pfizer’s clinical data as it becomes available before we use the vaccine in Malaysia.” Khairy added.
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