KUALA LUMPUR, July 16 — Pharmaniaga Bhd today offered an additional two million doses of Sinovac’s Covid-19 vaccine to the government after completing delivery of Putrajaya’s 12 million order.
The local pharmaceutical company said the last batch of doses would be delivered to the government on July 21, four and a half months earlier than its original schedule for the federal government’s order.
“Pharmaniaga is also prepared to make additional deliveries if the federal government wishes to continue using Sinovac’s Covid-19 vaccine in the National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme (PICK),” Pharmaniaga said in a statement today.
“The Company has made an offer of two million additional doses to the federal government and is awaiting an official decision.
“In the meantime, Pharmaniaga will continue to supply Sinovac’s Covid-19 vaccine to state governments, government agencies, and the private sector that have been long awaiting supply to help expedite their vaccination programmes simultaneously with PICK.”
Although Pharmaniaga was contracted by the government to supply 12 million doses of the double-shot Sinovac vaccine regimen through its local manufacturing fill-and-finish process, most of Pharmaniaga’s supply comprised the finished product from Beijing, China.
Pharmaniaga reportedly said that of the 11.5 million Sinovac doses it delivered to the federal government as of July 14, 7.9 million, or 69 per cent, were procured directly from Sinovac Biotech.
Yesterday, the Ministry of Health (MOH) confirmed that unvaccinated people would start receiving the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, as most of the Sinovac vaccines for first doses have already gone into arms.
“Given that the number of first-dose injections in all states has nearly reached six million, instructions have been given to stop first-dose administration and to concentrate on second-dose administration,” Pharmaniaga said in a statement today.
“It is to avoid the case of no stock for the second dose if more than six million first doses are given.”
The Kelantan state health department issued a circular yesterday announcing that it would start using Pfizer to vaccinate the rest of its population from July 18 and that Sinovac would only be administered as second doses.
The federal government has ordered 44.8 million doses of Pfizer’s vaccine, comprising 70 per cent of its overall orders covering 130 per cent of the population. The AstraZeneca-Oxford shot is also being rolled out in the national vaccination drive, besides Pfizer and Sinovac.
It is to be noted that the Selangor state government is independently procuring 2.5 million doses of Sinovac’s vaccine from Pharmaniaga to vaccinate 1.25 million, or 19 per cent, of the state’s 6.5 million population under its Selvax vaccination programme.
