Private vaccine? Priority is to vaccinate 80pct of population first

 

The limited global supply of Covid-19 vaccines has made it necessary for the government to monopolise vaccine purchase to ensure the success of the National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme, said Deputy Science, Technology and Innovation Minister Ahmad Amzad Hashim.

He said although there were requests from the private sector to buy the vaccine through the government, the priority now is for the government to get adequate supply speedily to achieve the target of vaccinating 80 percent or 26.5 million of the population including foreigners for free.

“We have involved the private sector in this (immunisation) programme but as implementers in giving a free vaccine. 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 wishing to go overseas on business which face a delay in waiting their turn for the vaccine but we haven’t got a policy (to allow vaccine purchase by the private sector),” he told reporters after launching the TD1303 x Jazro Robotic Academy yesterday.

He said this when asked to comment on reports that the private sector was keen to buy Covid-19 vaccines with the help of the government, currently the only channel to get vaccine supply from manufacturers.

Amzad said as of Friday, more than two million Malaysians have registered for vaccination, and of this 112,000 were frontliners who had received their jabs.

He advised the people not to worry about the brand of vaccines approved by the National Pharmaceutical Regulatory Agency (NPRA), which is very thorough on matters of quality and safety of vaccines.

“So far 279 million doses of vaccine have been administered to individuals in 107 countries. On average six million people were given vaccine jabs daily and the rate of side effects was low,” he added.

- Bernama