The Malaysian Insight

PUTRAJAYA needs to review the current vaccine strategies and implement a new rollout approach to resolve the country’s vaccine supply shortfall issue, said the Pakatan Harapan Covid-19 vaccination committee.

It urged the National Pharmaceutical Regulatory Agency (NPRA) to speed up its vaccine approval, expand the basket of vaccine mix and allow state governments and private hospitals to provide vaccines to paying customers.

In a statement released today, the committee urged the Ministry of Health and its own committee to review the current vaccine strategies to hasten the vaccination exercise.

The statement was jointly signed by Dr Dzulkefly Ahmad, Dr Lee Boon Chye, Dr Kelvin Yii, Dr Mohd Hatta Ramli, Sim Tze Tzin, Dr Ong Kian Ming, Dr Siti Mariah Mahmud, Dr Norlela Ariffin and Veerapan Supramaniam.

They said the current vaccination drive is too slow and ineffective to curb the record-breaking spike in Covid-19 infections in the country, which hit a record high of 6,075 new cases yesterday. The figure today increased to 6,806.

“Based on the May 5 statement by Minister Khairy Jamaluddin, Phase 3 of immunisation may possibly be delayed due to an insufficient supply of vaccines.

“This raises a drastic concern as the patience of millions of Malaysians are stretched thin due to the incredibly idle pace of the vaccine rollout.

“The government is relying on three NPRA-approved vaccines: Pfizer, AstraZeneca, and Sinovac. Relying merely on just three vaccines is too few and too risky,” they said.

The committee said the NPRA must first expedite the review and approval of vaccine candidates, especially those approved by the World Health Organisation (WHO) and corresponding health authorities overseas.

“The tedious bureaucratic processes must be cut short and expedited, while preserving the independence of the review process to ensure swift approvals while safeguarding the safety and efficacy of those vaccines,” the committee said.

“As of now, the Sputnik V and Cansino vaccines are still pending approval after many months. This is too slow.”

The committee said the process can be sped up with the assistance from peer competent agencies from other nations.

“If the two vaccines mentioned are approved, the resulting acceleration of the vaccine rollout would play a major role in fighting the current spike of Covid-19.”

The committee also suggested expanding the current selection of vaccines.

It said Putrajaya must take initiative to procure new WHO-approved vaccines such as Janssen and Moderna.

“We should also start to negotiate with late-stage trial vaccines such as Sinopharm, Novavax and more. The government must not be content with the current variety of vaccines, as pharmaceutical companies have directed their priorities to wealthy nations,” the committee said.

“Malaysia can afford to purchase vaccines at or above market price to secure early vaccine delivery, a tactic used by Israel and the UAE.

“The adverse impact of slow vaccination to the economy greatly overshadows the cost of spending a little more to buy vaccines. Malaysia must not be trapped in the Titanic, waiting for the current fleet of lifeboats but must instead buy more “tickets” to new lifeboats.

The third strategy that can be taken up by Putrajaya is to liberalise the vaccination programme to enable state governments and private healthcare entities such as hospitals and medical providers to procure and vaccinate paid customers.

“This will draw market forces to fill the gap. The federal government would then be able to use their limited resources to focus on efforts to vaccinate the rest of the population.”

The committee warned that Putrajaya must refrain from repeating previous mistakes in vaccination procurement.

“Malaysia was late in procurement compared to neighbouring countries such as Singapore and Indonesia.”

“Our ‘wait and see’ attitude has led to the failure to control the current spike and has consequently cost us many lives. As grave as our situation may seem, all is not lost.”

“Now it is time for us to take a stand to rethink our vaccine strategies and save lives.”

The government has imposed MCO 3.0 nationwide from May 12 to June 7 to curb the spread of the virus. However, economic sectors are allowed to operate with the tighter standard operating procedures. Social activities and restaurant dine-ins are prohibited.

Despite this, daily Covid-19 cases have been spiking, with the country registering a record 6,806 infections today while the number of deaths registered yesterday was 47. – May 20, 2021.