KUALA LUMPUR: Details on Covid-19 vaccine procurement under the National Immunisation Plan (NIP) have been presented to the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), the Dewan Rakyat was told today.
Science, Technology and Innovation Minister Khairy Jamaluddin said this was to ensure transparency in the spending of RM5.8 billion in public coffers for the purpose of procuring and administration of Covid-19 vaccines.
"Health Minister (Datuk Seri Dr Adham Baba) and I have furnished information such as agreements and expenditure to the committee on Jan 5.
"Yesterday, I was once again present before PAC to give my statement. I will continue to present all necessary information to PAC," said the Covid-19 National Immunisation Plan (NIP) coordinating minister during the parliament special sitting today.
He said six suppliers for eight vaccine types were listed under the NIP, namely, Pfizer & Biontech (to cover 70% of the population); AstraZeneca (10% population), Sinovac (19.4% population), CanSino (for 10.9% population) and Gamaleya (10% population, pending assessment by the National Pharmaceutical Regulatory Agency), as well as the global Covid-19 Vaccines Global Access or Covax (10% population).
He said the government continued negotiations with vaccine producers to ensure sufficient supply in the country, including additional three million doses of Sinovac vaccines.
He said procurement of Covid-19 vaccines, enough to cover 41,699,650 people or 130.3 per cent of the population, was intended as stockpiles for undocumented foreigners, potential vaccination of children and booster shots (pending assessment by experts under the Special Committee on Covid-19 Vaccine Supply Access Guarantee or JKJAV).
Meanwhile, the Sputnik V vaccine produced by Gamaleya National Research Centre for Epidemiology and Microbiology, Russia, was still undergoing NPRA assessment, while the Novavax vaccine, that was offered via the Covax facility had yet to receive World Health Organisation (WHO) Emergency Use Listing Procedure (EUL) approval.
"Apart from vaccines in the NIP portfolio, there are two other types that received conditional approval from NPRA, namely, supplier and vaccine registration holders Duopharma (M) Sdn Bhd with the vaccine Covilo (Sinopharm); and Johnson & Johnson Sdn Bhd with the vaccine Janssen (J&J), both approved on July 16.
"Though they are not listed under the NIP portfolio, conditional approval will allow these vaccine types to be used in Malaysia if necessary, via government procurement or sold in the market by the private sector."
In addition, three countries have also contributed vaccine doses to Malaysia, namely, Japan (998,400 doses), the United States (1,000,350 doses) and China (500,000 doses), he said.
To date, he said the government has received about of 26.38 million Covid-19 vaccine doses in total.
Khairy also thanked the frontliners who have worked hard to ensure the success of the NIP, with the country now having one of the fastest vaccination rates in the world, as well as the public who have given their full cooperation.