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KUALA TERENGGANU: The limited global supply of COVID-19 vaccines has made it necessary for the Malaysian government to monopolize purchases to ensure the success of its national immunization program, Vice Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation Ahmad Amzad Hashim said on Saturday (6 of March). ).
He said that although there were requests from the private sector to purchase the vaccine through the government, the priority now is for the government to obtain an adequate supply quickly to achieve the goal of vaccinating 80 percent of the population for free.
“We managed to get the private sector involved in this (immunization) program but as implementers in the delivery of free vaccines. They (the private sector) are not the ones who bought the vaccine.
“This matter is on our radar. For example, there may be (private) agencies that want to go abroad for business that face a delay in waiting their turn to receive the vaccine, but we do not have a policy (that allows the purchase of vaccines by the private sector), ”he said to journalists after the launch. the TD1303 x Jazro Robotic Academy here on Saturday.
He said this when asked to comment on reports that the private sector was interested in purchasing COVID-19 vaccines with government help, currently the only channel for obtaining vaccine supplies from manufacturers.
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Ahmad Amzad said that as of Friday, more than 2 million Malaysians had registered for vaccination. Of this, 112,000 were avant-garde who had received their blows.
He assured the public of the safety of the vaccines and said the approval process was thorough on quality issues.
“So far, 279 million doses of vaccine have been administered to people in 107 countries. On average, 6 million people received vaccine injections per day and the rate of side effects was low, “he added.
Malaysia began its vaccination campaign on February 24 with an injection developed by US pharmaceutical company Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech. It granted conditional approval for the use of vaccines made by British firm AstraZeneca and Chinese firm Sinovac on March 2.
Conditional approval means Malaysia will use the vaccines developed by Astrazeneca and Sinovac, but both companies, together with Pfizer, will need to provide additional data on ongoing submissions to ensure the effectiveness and safety of the vaccines, said Chief Health Officer Noor Hisham Abdullah. . In the past week.
READ: Malaysian Prime Minister Muhyiddin receives COVID-19 as vaccine launch begins
Health authorities are also evaluating the COVID-19 vaccine produced by Russia’s Gamaleya Research Institute and the local bottling plant for the Sinovac vaccine, Noor Hisham said.
Last month, the government said it had secured 66.7 million doses of vaccines, enough to more than cover its population of about 32 million.
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