‘MALAYSIA MAY GET A COVID-19 VACCINE BY THE END OF NEXT YEAR’
It’s a possibility as nation has joined Covid19 Global Vaccine Access Plan, says expert
MA LAYS IA will be among several countries that might receive vaccines against Covid-19 by the end of next year.
Malaysian Public Health Physicians’ Association president Datuk Dr Zainal Ariffin Omar said this was now a possibility following the government’s plan to join Covax — the Covid-19 Global Vaccine Access Plan.
He said by being a part of the initiative, which was established to accelerate the development and manufacture of Covid-19 vaccines, it also enabled the country to obtain vaccines at an affordable price.
“The government made the right move to be a part of this commitment that supports knowledge-sharing, and guarantees fair and equitable access to a vaccine by pooling purchasing power from participating countries across a range of candidate vaccines.
“Covax ensures countries are involved in the global race to find a vaccine against the pandemic.
“Malaysia has for long been very supportive towards the World Health Organisation (WHO). We were among the few early nations to join in many of the WHO’s initiatives. It was quite surprising to see Malaysia not being part of Covax earlier.
“Malaysia has announced that it will join Covax after the closing date (Sept 18), a move that should be lauded and supported,” he told the New Straits Times.
Covax is co-led by the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (Cepi), Global Alliance for Vaccine and Immunisation (Gavi), and WHO. It was working in partnership with developed and developing country vaccine manufacturers.
On Sept 19, the Science, Technology and Innovation Ministry said the government planned to procure vaccine supplies against the novel coronavirus when it becomes available.
It added that the government was in the midst of negotiating terms with Gavi.
Dr Zainal said Covax was designed to discourage governments from hoarding Covid-19 vaccines and to focus on first vaccinating the high-risk populations in every country.
This, he said, would allow the most vulnerable populations (health workers, the elderly and those with pre-existing conditions) to have access to a vaccine regardless of their affordability.
“It (Covax) also prevents price and supply manipulation and discrimination as some countries could have taken steps to directly secure supplies with bilateral transactions with single manufacturers or producing country.
“It is the only way to mitigate the public health and economic impact of the pandemic. We can anticipate the vaccines to be ready for the hight risk group by next year and for wider distribution by mid-2021.”
As of the deadline of Sept 18 (to join Covax), 172 countries, including 76 high-income countries and 92 poor nations, had joined the group. The list included Singapore, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Myanmar, the Philippines and Vietnam.
According to WHO, the nine candidate vaccines that were be
ing evaluated for inclusion in the Covax Facility were two from China, two from the United States, one from South Korea, one from the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland, and one global multimanufacturing partnership.
Two of these are in phase one trials, two are tech transfers and the remainder are at the discovery stage, it wrote on its website.
It said the goal of Covax was to deliver two billion doses of safe, effective vaccines that had passed regulatory approval and/or WHO prequalification by the end of next year
“These vaccines will be offered equally to all participating countries, proportional to their populations, initially prioritising healthcare workers then expanding to cover vulnerable groups.
“Further doses will then be made available based on country need, vulnerability and Covid-19 threat,” it wrote.