KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 11 — The Malaysian government has purchased 25 million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine for 39 per cent of the population that will be delivered throughout this year.
The manufacturing and supply agreement signed by the Ministry of Health (MOH) today was to procure 12.8 million doses of Pfizer’s vaccine that will be supplied by end February, covering 20 per cent of the population with its two-dose regimen.
“The agreement signed today is for the first phase with the delivery of vaccines throughout Malaysia,” the Ministry of Health said in a statement today.
“The government also agreed to procure an additional supply of 12.2 million doses, which leads to a total 25 million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech BNT1262b vaccine, covering 39 per cent of the population of Malaysia, which will be shipped throughout 2021.”
The agreement was signed by Health Minister Dr Adham Baba and Pfizer’s country manager for Malaysia and Brunei, Luksanwan Thangpaibool, virtually in Putrajaya today.
Last Friday, the National Pharmaceutical Regulatory Agency (NPRA) gave a conditional registration to the Pfizer vaccine, which means it can be now used in Malaysia. NPRA, however, is waiting for some more additional information from Pfizer on their vaccine.
The Malaysian government plans to give the first one million doses of the Pfizer vaccine next month or early March to 500,000 frontliners, comprising 300,000 health care workers and 200,000 frontliners from the police, army, and social care sector.
Science, Technology and Innovation Minister Khairy Jamaluddin told Astro Awani last week that the second phase of the Covid-19 vaccination programme would begin in the second quarter of the year for senior citizens and people with comorbidities like diabetes and cardiovascular disease.
The third phase of the mass inoculation campaign for adults is estimated to start in the third quarter of 2021 for the general population.
Khairy also said the government has identified 600 vaccination centres across the country and will be training 7,200 staff from both the government and private health sector to undertake the Covid-19 vaccination programme for 18 months to immunise 80 per cent of the population.
