The Pakatan Harapan Covid-19 vaccination committee says state governments and private health care providers should be allowed to procure their own Covid-19 vaccine supply and inoculate paying customers.
According to a real-world study by the Ministry of Health on health care workers, Pfizer-BioNTech’s Covid-19 vaccine is 65% effective after the first dose and 95% effective three weeks after the second dose.
Vaccine Minister Khairy Jamaluddin says that Malaysia’s Covid-19 vaccine supply will only exceed demand in July, when Malaysia is due to receive bulk vaccine deliveries from manufacturers.
The stoppage is the latest blow in efforts to roll out mass vaccination programmes against a deadly virus that has killed more than 2.7 million people around the world.
The government will conduct a dry run on January 29 to transport saline-filled bottles at minus 70 degrees Celsius from a Covid-19 vaccine storage centre in Sarawak to a vaccination site in Belaga district, Kapit, Sarawak.