Is Malaysia’s Covid-19 Vaccine Supply Falling Short Of Government Estimates? —Yeo Bee Yin

The government should find ways to shorten the bulk-to-vials process, without compromising safety.

As Malaysians have been enduring the third Movement Control Order (MCO) for more than a week now, with the daily Covid-19 positive number showing no sign of improvement, we wonder if the MCO will be extended, and most importantly, when will we be seeing the end of this dark tunnel?

Indeed, many things may not be within our control such as emerging variants. However, we can at least do other things such as increasing efficiency and speed in tracing, testing and isolating, as well as managing the vaccination rollout better to lower the number of cases and severity of the positive cases. 

Vaccination rollout in the UK showed clearly that vaccination, while not a silver bullet, is a major solution to the crisis. Let me illustrate this in numbers.

The UK started their vaccination rollout in the beginning of 2021. At the start of the year, the first dose vaccination rate was less than 3 per cent, while full vaccination rate was less than 1 per cent.

As of now, nearly 70 per cent of the UK population has received at least the first dose of the vaccine, and about 40 per cent has completed two doses of the vaccine.

The number of Covid-19 positive cases has dropped from around 60,000 per day in January 2021 to around 2,000 positive cases per day in May 2021.

Within just five months of an efficient vaccine rollout, the UK has seen a drop of more than 95 per cent of positive cases.

In Malaysia, the National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme (PICK) was launched on February 24, 2021. On April 14, Vaccine Minister Khairy Jamaluddin shared on his social media platforms an estimation of vaccine supply and demand by the Special Committee on Ensuring Access to Covid-19 Vaccine Supply (JKJAV). 

Yesterday, it was reported that Malaysia has administered 2.07 million doses of Covid-19 vaccine according to JKJAV. Assuming usage rate at 70 per cent, we have received about 2.95 million doses of vaccine so far.

However, from the estimation graph, we should have received about six million doses by the middle of May. Is our vaccination supply now falling short of the earlier estimation? 

The graph also shows that in May, we will have received four million additional doses. Since we are now in late May, we would like to seek clarification from the government if the estimation of four million additional doses this month will be achieved? Will the government going to find ways to compensate for the shortfall of vaccines? 

The government cannot put all the blame on the developed countries. We should find ways to improve the process.

For example, Pharmaniaga received 200 litres of Sinovac vaccines in bulk for fill-and-finish on February 27, 2021. However, the first batch of locally filled-and-finished Sinovac vaccines (290,480 doses) was only ready to be distributed last week – more than 10 weeks after receiving the supply.

The government should review the process and if possible, find ways to shorten the bulk-to-vials process, without compromising safety. 

We call upon the government to use the whole-of-government and all-of-society approach so that we can achieve the vaccination target set earlier, namely 80 per cent herd immunity by October, and 80 per cent fully vaccinated by February 2022.

The opposition and the private sector are not the government’s enemies. There is plenty of room for collaboration, so together we can ensure that PICK is a success.

UK Covid-19 statistics such as vaccination rates, testing rates, number of positive cases, etc can be found here.

Yeo Bee Yin is Member of Parliament for Bakri and the former Minister of Energy, Science, Technology, Environment & Climate Change.

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