BACHOK: The government has spent more than RM60 million in the Research and Development (R&D) programmes to produce Malaysia's own Covid-19 vaccine.
Science, Technology and Innovation Deputy Minister Datuk Ahmad Amzad Hashim said the move was to reduce the country's dependence on imported vaccines.
"Malaysia cannot continue relying on Covid-19 vaccine supplies from abroad and so far, the government has spent about RM4 billion in purchasing the vaccines.
"This is the time we should produce our own vaccine. Therefore, several experts, local universities and institutions in the country undertaking R&D to help Malaysia in this," he said, after launching Tawang community vaccine mobile programme in Senok beach here today.
Through the R&D programmes, Ahmad Amzad said the ministry has also implemented science diplomacy with foreign countries as well as other universities.
"As an example in producing the messenger ribonucleic acid (MRNA) vaccine, we are cooperating with Chulalongkorn university in Thailand which is the pioneer for this R&D programme," he added.
He hoped Malaysia would succeed in the programme and one day would become producers and exporters of Covid-19 vaccine.
"With the co-operation from Malaysia Islamic Development Department (Jakim) as well as the National Pharmaceutical Regulatory Agency (NPRA), hopefully our dream will be achieved.
"Muslim's will have more confidence if the vaccine is produced by an Islamic country," he added.
It was reported that Malaysia is in the process of developing two types of Covid-19 vaccines - a ribonucleic acid (RNA) vaccine or messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccine and an inactivated vaccine.
The project hoped could help to accelerate the country's Covid-19 National Immunisation Programme (NIP) and towards achieving Malaysia's herd immunity goal by year-end.
A team of researchers from the ministry's Institute for Medical Research Malaysia (IMR) has been involved in developing the vaccines.