KUALA LUMPUR: The act of "greed" by certain developed countries which had over purchased Covid-19 vaccines led to a global delivery and supply problem that had also affected Malaysia.
Science, Technology and Innovation Minister Khairy Jamaluddin said Malaysia had so far received 1.3 million doses of vaccine due to the slow delivery schedule which had many people questioning the slow vaccination rate.
"This is because of the global supply chain which is facing problems and challenges and also due to the attitude of developed countries that bought and booked huge numbers of vaccines to the extent that they are able to inoculate each of the residents up to five times more.
"Their greedy attitude is the cause of why developing countries like Malaysia and Australia are facing problems with the vaccine supply at this time," he said during the weekly Covid-19 Immunisation Task Force press conference today.
Also present was Health Minister Datuk Seri Dr Adham Baba.
However, Khairy gave his assurances that the nation would have sufficient vaccine supplies to immunise those involved in the ongoing Phase 1 of the National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme (NIP) and to roll out Phase 2 on April 19.
So far, 979,794 people have been vaccinated against Covid-19 since the NIP kicked off on Feb 26 this year.
Of the number, 395,891 have been fully inoculated while 583,903 are waiting to receive their second dose, said Khairy, who is NIP coordinating minister.
Over 8.5 million people have registered to be immunised via platforms such as the MySejahtera app.
Khairy said Malaysia will receive Covid-19 vaccine supplies on a weekly basis of up to 712,530 doses this month.
"We are also looking at an additional 200,000 doses of finished product vaccines from Sinovac's China factory. And this supply as well as the increase should be sufficient for us to finish Phase 1 and start Phase 2.
"For this week, we will be receiving 133,380 doses on April 14; 31,590 doses on April 15; and 12,870 doses on April 16. Cumulatively, this week, there will be 177,840 Pfizer-BioNTech doses," he said.
Khairy added that they are working hard to speed up the delivery but that would also be dependent and contingent on the delivery schedule.
"And as we get more vaccines, we will certainly ensure that they are utilised as quickly as possible. We have also agreed to put media members in the priority list. But like I said, there is a supply problem. When we have enough, we will include them."
To this, Dr Adham said he and the Health Ministry supported the idea of having media members immunised.
"We support media members to be vaccine recipients as they are now equivalent to frontliners."
On Malaysia's move to donate 50,000 doses to Bosnia-Herzegovina, Khairy said it would not disrupt the NIP as the decision to despatch the supply will take into account the nation's existing supply and schedule.