Over 8mil vaccine doses will expire by September, says Zaliha

 

The government had ordered 88.1 million doses of Covid-19 vaccine as of Feb 18, 2022.

PETALING JAYA: More than eight million doses of Covid-19 vaccines stored by the health ministry will expire by September this year, minister Dr Zaliha Mustafa said today.

“As of February 2023, there were 8,633,249 doses of vaccine from various brands in stock with an expiration date of between February and September 2023.

“The current stock of vaccines will be used to continue vaccination efforts, especially booster doses,” she said in a parliamentary written reply.

Zaliha was answering a question by Kuching MP Dr Kelvin Yii who asked how many doses of Covid-19 vaccines were in stock and when they would expire.

According to the ministry, there are currently 499,970 doses of Sinopharm vaccines donated by the United Arab Emirates still in stock and they would expire in September.

A total of 144,978 doses of CanSino vaccines expired in February, another 2.1 million doses will expire in March and 900,000 doses will expire in April.

As for Sinovac, 1,156,389 doses of the vaccine will expire between March and July, while one million doses donated by China will expire in September.

There were 2,587,650 doses of Pfizer vaccines with an expiration date of between February and April, and 244,262 doses of the Pfizer vaccine for children with an expiration date of between February and June.

Yesterday, Zaliha said 2,796,638 vaccine doses expired in February. They made up 3.27% of the total number of vaccine doses acquired by the government.

However, she said the government was unable to disclose specific details as it was bound by the vaccine manufacturers’ non-disclosure agreements (NDAs).

In a written parliamentary reply last March, then health minister Khairy Jamaluddin said the government ordered 88.1 million Covid-19 vaccine doses as of Feb 18, 2022, at a cost of RM4.72 billion.

The vaccines were enough to cover 143.13% (46.03 million) of the country’s adult, adolescent and child population.

The issue of expired vaccines was also highlighted by Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim in January when he said Malaysia had five to six million doses left in stock after expired doses were destroyed because of poor demand. - FMT