PETALING JAYA: The Federal Government has been asked to buy up the 3.2 million doses of excess supply of Covid-19 vaccine held by Pharmaniaga.
Making the call, DAP leader Lim Kit Siang (pix) today said this will speed up and complete the national immunisation rollout before 64th National Day on Aug 31 or latest by 54th Malaysia Day on Sept 16 as the country is in a race of “vaccine vs Delta virus”.
Tanjung Karang MP Tan Sri Noh Omar told Parliament last Wednesday that government-linked company Pharmaniaga had 3.2 million doses of Covid-19 vaccine in excess supply in storage.
“In the past week, while Malaysia was plunged into a major constitutional crisis, Malaysian policy makers had been distracted from the change in the character of the war against Covid-19 pandemic,” Lim said.
“The US Center for Disease Control (CDC) said the war against Covid-19 had changed because of the highly contagious Delta variant, proposing a clearer message, mandatory vaccines for health workers and a return to universal masking.
“An internal CDC document said the variant, first detected in India and now dominant across the globe, is as contagious as chickenpox and far more contagious than the common cold or flu. It can be passed on even by vaccinated people, and may cause more serious disease than earlier coronavirus strains.”
Lim pointed out that the document, entitled “Improving communications around vaccine breakthrough and vaccine effectiveness”, said the variant required a new approach to help the public understand the danger - including making clear that unvaccinated people were more than 10 times more likely than those who are vaccinated to become seriously ill or die.
“It is unfortunate that Malaysian policy makers were distracted from this new development in the war against the Covid-19 pandemic by a major constitutional crisis precipitated by the assertion of the de facto Law Minister, (Datuk Seri) Takiyuddin Hassan in Parliament on Monday that six emergency ordinances had been revoked on July 21 although there was no Royal Assent or gazette.
“Although vaccination is important, vaccination is not a silver bullet and we cannot depend on it to win the war against the Covid-19 pandemic. It is a matter of grave concern that after five months of the national immunisation rollout, we have only fully vaccinated 20% of Malaysians with two doses.
“Now that the Delta variant is upon us, I call on the Minister in charge of vaccines, Khairy Jamaluddin, to buy up the 3.2 million doses of excess supply of Covid-19 vaccines held by Pharmaniaga to accelerate the national immunisation rollout and to aim at achieving the administration of one million doses of vaccines a day,” the Iskandar Puteri MP added.
