Malaysia widens approach to speed up vaccine drive amid slow registrations

Kuala Lumpur

MALAYSIA will allow private hospitals to join its Covid-19 vaccination drive and widen the pool of people eligible to receive the shots in the second phase of a national immunisation programme, seeking to achieve its own herd immunity goal before the year's end.

Private healthcare providers will be allowed to negotiate their own vaccine procurement, said Science, Technology and Innovation Minister Khairy Jamaluddin earlier this week, although this will probably mean that people can only start paying for their own vaccines in the second half of 2021.

Malaysia has a target of vaccinating at least 80 per cent of its adult population by the end of this year.

The country is on track to finish vaccinating 500,000 healthcare and defence workers by April, with 451,655 already given the first dose since the vaccination drive began on Feb 24.

However, while its initial plan was to start inoculating 9.4 million seniors and people with chronic diseases in the second phase that will begin on April 19 and last until August, only two million people from this group have registered so far.

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This has prompted the authorities to bring forward the third phase - which targets the rest of the 13.7 million-strong adult population aged 18 and above - by a month, from May initially.

The government also plans to sign an agreement soon with industry players to vaccinate workers in key economic sectors when supplies are sufficient, said Mr Khairy, who is the coordinating minister for the national immunisation programme.

Greater attention will be given to companies with more than 5,000 workers and those in the red zones or high-risk areas, he has said.

The government has previously said that workers in crucial economic sectors such as manufacturing, construction, aviation, and oil and gas might be able to get their shots in the second phase while authorities attempt to boost sign-up rates among the older folks and high-risk patients.

Even Malaysians who need to commute to Singapore for work may be included in the second phase, said Mr Khairy after his discussions with Singapore's Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan.

Overall, about seven million people in Malaysia have registered for vaccination, representing about 22 per cent of the total population of 32 million.

The country registered 1,178 new infections on April 1, taking the total number of confirmed cases to almost 346,700. A total of 1,278 people have died as a result of Covid-19.

"The faster we are with the inoculations to achieve herd immunity, the more hope there is for the economy to recover," said Areca Capital's chief executive officer Danny Wong.

"Trade is hinging on this as cross-border traffic cannot resume without having the pandemic under control. Besides tourism and other key sectors, it also has an impact on retailers here as they depend on not just Malaysians, but also foreigners who live in Malaysia for business."

As of February, Malaysia has secured 66.7 million doses of vaccines through the Covax facility and advance purchases from five vaccine manufacturers, enough to cover the entire population of 32 million.

Of the five manufacturers, vaccines from Pfizer-BioNTech, Sinovac and AstraZeneca have been approved with conditions for local use by the Malaysian authorities. The other two vaccines are by Sputnik V and CanSinoBio, both of which are still pending approval for use.

Malaysia's vaccine procurement and negotiations with the manufacturers also cover aspects of cooperation, including knowledge transfer elements to enable the country to build its own vaccine development capacity.

Two Malaysian companies - Pharmaniaga and Solution Biologics - have signed agreements with the government to carry out the fill and finish manufacturing process locally, which is the step of filling the vaccine into the vials before it is distributed.

Under this arrangement, China's Sinovac and CanSinoBio vaccines will be purchased in bulk and the manufacturing process will be implemented in Malaysia.

Pharmaniaga is currently conducting the process validation batch to bottle Sinovac vaccine locally, The Star newspaper reported last week.

Malaysia is also in talks with the Russian government about research and development and manufacturing of the Sputnik V vaccine in Malaysia to increase the amount of doses that can be deployed in the country and the region.

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