KUALA LUMPUR: Pharmaniaga Bhd is just 500,000 doses shy of delivering the contracted 12 million doses of Sinovac Covid-19 vaccine to the government.
Pharmaniaga has so far delivered almost 11.5 million doses of Sinovac vaccine, covering 93 per cent of the 12 million doses under its contract with the government.
Group managing director Datuk Zulkarnain Md Eusope expects to complete the 12 million doses by the third week of this month.
The company's vaccine supply was four-month ahead of completion by November this year, he added.
The 12 million doses could cover 18 per cent of Malaysia's population, Zulkarnain said at a virtual press conference here today.
"We expedite the vaccine supplies due to the rising Covid-19 cases," he added.
Of the total 11.5 million, 3.6 million doses of the vaccine were locally produced via fill and finish and the remaining 7.9 million doses were the finished goods procured from China.
The vaccine was approved by the National Pharmaceutical Regulatory Authority (NPRA) and the World Health Organisation (WHO).
Zulkarnain said Pharmaniaga would be ready to supply additional two million doses of Sinovac vaccine to the government, followed by state governments and the private sector after completing its major contractual obligation.
"We can start supplying the vaccine to the state governments and private sector by the third week of July. We have readily available close to 3.0 million extra doses after completing the 12 million doses to the government.
"These extra doses would be a direct import from China (1.0 million doses) and locally produced via fill and finish (2.0 million doses) at our production plant in Puchong," he said.
Zulkarnain said priorities would be given to the federal government before tending to the supply for the private sector.
"We will assist the government with additional 2.0 million doses. We expect to supply to the government before the end of July.
"The government has a delivery network under the National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme for all its vaccination centres directed by the Health Ministry with daily deliveries between 300,000 and 400,000 doses," he added.
Zulkarnain said there was no supply disruption as Pharmaniaga's vaccine production was running 24 hours a day.
"We don't foresee any issue as the vaccine delivery is on schedule. However, the private sector might face logistics issues transporting the vaccine as it requires storage between 2.0 and 8.0 Celsius," he said.
Pharmaniaga must have a ready stock in the event the government wanted to procure the vaccine immediately, he added.
Meanwhile, Zulkarnain said the government had yet to determine the ceiling price for Pharmaniaga to sell the vaccine to the private sector.
"The cost of administering the vaccine is high as they need to have doctors and nurses, protective equipment and a safety network to dispose of materials after vaccination.
"They also need to comply with standard operating procedures. All of these administration costs need to be included," he said, adding that vaccine administrators must have a pharmaceutical Class-A licence for storage and to undertake an inoculation programme.