Supply unaffected by India export ban

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia’s supply of the AstraZeneca vaccine will not be disrupted by India’s export restrictions as the doses are not from the Serum Institute of India, but from SK Bioscience, a vaccine manufacturer in South Korea.

Science, Technology and Innovation Minister Khairy Jamaluddin, however, gave his assurance that he would look into the matter further.

He also said he received AstraZeneca’s delivery schedule from the company’s contract manufacturing plant in Thailand yesterday, which confirmed that the delivery of Malaysia’s consignment of vaccines would start in June.

He said the first 600,000 doses of the vaccine would be delivered then and subsequent deliveries would arrive monthly. This, he added, was a direct consignment from the manufacturer.

Reuters previously reported that India had put a temporary hold on all major exports of the AstraZeneca vaccine made by the Serum Institute of India, the world’s biggest vaccine-maker, to meet domestic demand following a rise in infections.

The move would affect supplies to the Gavi and World Health Organisation-backed global Covax vaccine-sharing facility, through which 64 low-income countries were supposed to get doses from SII, the programme’s procurement and distributing partner of the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund.