Did we ‘lose’ the 6.4mil pre-ordered Sputnik V doses, asks MP

 

Duopharma says it has signed an agreement with the government to supply 6.4 million doses of the Sputnik V vaccine, but it is unclear if they are the same 6.4 million doses that Khairy Jamaluddin mentioned in March. (AP pic)

PETALING JAYA: An MP wants to know what happened to the 6.4 million doses of Sputnik V vaccines Malaysia pre-ordered.

In March, Khairy Jamaluddin, the minister coordinating the National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme, told health news portal CodeBlue that unless the National Pharmaceutical Regulatory Agency (NPRA) approved the Rusisan Covid-19 vaccine “soon”, the 6.4 million doses “may go to another country”.

“Did we ‘lose’ out on those 6.4 million pre-ordered doses? I assume so as this (CodeBlue report) was quite a while ago,” Bandar Kuching MP Dr Kelvin Yii said.

“It’s a question only Khairy can answer.

Dr Kelvin Yii.

“I also want to know how this affected our vaccine supplies, especially in the earlier stages (of the vaccination programme).”

FMT has reached out to an aide to Khairy for clarification.

The CodeBlue article was published ahead of a meeting in the first week of April by the Drug Control Authority (DCA), an agency under the NPRA, during which the Russian vaccine was to be approved, with Khairy saying that if the vaccine did not make it through the regulatory threshold, Malaysia “might lose that 6.4 million”.

NPRA has given approval for the use of three vaccines in Malaysia – Pfizer, AstraZeneca and Sinovac.

China’s CanSino and the US’ Johnson & Johnson vaccines are aso currently being reviewed by the agency.

On Tuesday, Duopharma (M) Sdn Bhd announced it had signed an agreement with the government to supply 6.4 million doses of the Sputnik V vaccine.

However, it did not provide any information as to whether these are the same 6.4 million doses that Khairy mentioned in March. No mention was also made as to when the supply would arrive or whether it would go through a fill-and-finish process at Duopharma’s Klang facility.

Yii, however, noted that without NPRA’s approval for Sputnik V, Duopharma would be unable to process these vaccines or import them into the country.

“Now, the main bottleneck (during the national immunisation programme) is the availability of stocks,” he told FMT.

“One of the best ways to overcome this is for NPRA to expedite the conditional approval, not just for any vaccine, but for those which have been approved by the WHO (World Health Organization) and used around the world. I’m talking about vaccines like Sputnik V, Sinopharm and Moderna.”

Sputnik V, developed by Russia’s Gamaleya National Research Center for Epidemiology and Microbiology, has been registered in 68 countries across the world.

Based on data published in The Lancet, one of the world’s oldest and most respected medical journals, Sputnik V’s efficacy has been confirmed at 91.6%. - FMT