PUTRAJAYA: The government has allocated RM2.05 billion for the purchase of Covid-19 vaccines for Malaysians, said Science, Technology and Innovation Minister Khairy Jamaluddin.
He said the vaccine will cover a total of 26.5 million Malaysians who will get free vaccination (82.8 per cent of Malaysians).
Khairy, who is also the Special Vaccine Supply Access Guarantee Committee (JKJAV) co-chairman, said the allocation would be for procurement of vaccines not only from the Covax Facility, Pfizer and AstraZeneca, but also for three other deals.
"The government is currently in discussions with China-based Sinovac and CanSinoBIO, and also the Russian Gamaleya National Centre for more Covid-19 vaccines," he said at a special press conference on Covid-19 vaccine procurement at his ministry.
Khairy said the RM3 billion allocation approved by the government on the purchase of vaccines was only a rough estimation by the Finance Ministry.
"The balance (from the RM3 billion) will be reserved as buffer for any future purchases," he said, adding that the vaccines brought from the Covax facility, AstraZeneca and Pfizer should be able to cover 40 per cent of the population.
As for the remaining 42.8 per cent of the population, he said they would benefit from negotiations that the government had finalised with other pharmaceutical companies.
He reiterated that no middlemen were involved in the negotiations in the procurement of the vaccines, with direct negotiations having been been made with Pfizer and AstraZeneca.
The government so far has secured a deal with Pfizer to purchase 12.8 million doses of its Covid-19 Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. It also recently signed an agreement with AstraZeneca for the procurement of 6.4 million doses of its vaccine.
Khairy said the government would secure another 6.4 million doses from the Covax facility, covering a further 10 per cent of the population.
He said the government only opted for 10 per cent from the Covax facility following the a report of risk assessment. Reuters recently reported that the global scheme to deliver Covid-19 vaccines to poorer countries faced a very "high risk" for failure.
The report said this could potentially leave these nations with no access to vaccines until as late as 2024.
"We were happy with the objectives that were set out by Covax, but when we analysed it (further), we felt that a particular outcome was possible," he added.
On the delay in obtaining the vaccine despite Malaysia being the first country in Southeast Asia to announce the deal for Pfizer-BioNtech vaccines, he said this was due to cost, as Malaysia had wanted to obtain enough supply of vaccine from various pharmaceutical companies at an affordable price.
"We took our time to get the best deal possible. No company was able to sell 100 per cent (of the vaccines) as per Malaysia's need and countries that are more developed and stronger financially like the United States, the European Union and Singapore are able to secure the vaccines earlier as they have a much bigger budget than us," he said.
Khairy also explained that Indonesia received Covid-19 vaccines earlier this month because it was involved with the China-based Sinovac clinical trials.
"Indonesia is where the clinical trials for Sinovac were held... that is why they can have it (the vaccine), but it has yet to receive any approval from pharmaceutical regulatory bodies," he said.
Malaysia is set to receive its first batch of Covid-19 vaccine doses in February next year.