PETALING JAYA: Pharmaniaga has set its eyes on the supply of Covid-19 vaccine to the private sector in addition to the 12 million doses supplied to the Malaysian government which will inoculate 22% of the country population, according to its group managing director, Datuk Zulkarnain Md Eusope.
He explained that the government has asked the group to look into the provision of vaccines to economic frontliners among government-linked companies as well as expatriates and workers.
“These are the areas that we have identified and analysed, when we have completed our detailed analysis we will discuss with the government how to supply the vaccine to the private sector,” he told the media at a Covid-19 vaccine webinar today.
Currently, the group has procured a total of 14 million doses of China’s Sinovac vaccine, which is enough to inoculate 7 million people against Covid-19, an additional 2 million doses over the amount allocated for the public sector.
However, Zulkarnain emphasised that despite its aims to provide vaccine to the private sector, it is aligned with the government’s priority to deploy the vaccine for the public sector first.
For the time being, he said, all companies are not allowed to distribute the vaccine to the private sector yet, citing that the government was focused on the public sector.
“We have to let the authorities decide. We want to avoid confusion. We hope the public get the right information,” he said.
For the vaccine’s deployment, Zulkarnain said, Pharmaniaga submitted a registration application to the National Pharmaceutical Regulatory Agency (NPRA) on Jan 19, and it expects to receive approval by end February or early March.
“In our agreement with the government, we will start the deployment in April with 1 million doses for the first month and 2 million every month thereafter.”
Under the schedule, the group expects to fully deploy its vaccine by October this year.
Towards the deployment, the managing director said, all of its plants had received approval from the NPRA in December last year.
“Hopefully, once the vaccine arrives at our factory we can produce the vaccine as soon as possible,” he said.
Zulkarnain elaborated that the pharmaceutical company is ready to distribute the vaccine throughout the country as instructed by the government and the health ministry given its experience in handling other vaccines at a similar temperature of 2-8°C required by Sinovac’s Covid-19 vaccine for the last 25 years.
According to Pharmaniaga, Sinovac’s vaccine has an interim efficacy of 91.25% based on a trial on 13,000 adults conducted in Turkey to determine its efficacy among the general population.
