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PETALING JAYA: It will cost Malaysia around RM600,000 to obtain around three million doses of vaccine under global access to the Covid-19 (Covax) vaccine, says Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin.
“We need to pay RM42mil just to join the Covax plan.
“When we become members, we will be linked to buy the vaccines at a cost of RM600 thousand, which is a large sum of money,” he said yesterday at a press conference.
According to a website of
Gavi (the Vaccine Alliance), Covax is the mainstay of vaccines in the
Access to the Covid-19 Tool Accelerator (ACT).
“This involves coordinating the Covax Facility, a global risk-sharing mechanism for the joint procurement and equitable distribution of eventual Covid-19 vaccines,” the website says.
Muhyiddin said he had agreed to join the Covax plan, but had instructed the Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation, Khairy Jamaluddin, to further negotiate the cost of the vaccine once it is available to about 10% of the country’s population.
The Prime Minister also noted that Malaysia’s participation in Covax would not prevent Malay-sia from obtaining Covid-19 vaccines from other sources such as China.
On another matter, Muhyiddin brushed aside comments that he had been avoiding the media since he became Prime Minister in March.
“In the past, I have answered some questions from the media, but since taking office as Prime Minister, I wanted to focus more on the problems facing the country,” he said.
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