8.2 mln doses of Sinovac vaccine by end of June - Ismail Sabri

KUALA LUMPUR: The government will be acquiring a total of 8.2 million doses of Sinovac vaccine by the end of June with 3.8 million of them through fill and finish by Pharmaniaga Life Science Sdn Bhd.

Senior Minister (Security Cluster) Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob said 4.4 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine were imported directly from China with 400,000 already distributed and one million doses have arrived while the remaining three million would be received by the end of next month.

"...from the Pharmaniaga Life Science Sdn Bhd plant, 1.8 million are ready while two more million would be available by the end of June, thus giving the government a total of 8.2 million doses then," he told a media conference after witnessing the 'fill and finish' process at Pharmaniaga Life Science Sdn Bhd factory in Puchong near here today.

Also present was Pharmaniaga Berhad managing director, Datuk Zulkarnain Md Eusope.

Ismail Sabri said the effort of the company would enable the government to expedite the process of vaccination for the people.

"There is no issue of a supply shortage as Pharmaniaga can assist with its existing plant. As such, what we have today as I said earlier is a minimum of 8.2 million doses of vaccine by the end of June, " he said.

Ismail Sabri said as at yesterday, the Pharmaniaga factory had completed 1,889,800 doses of vaccine for distribution and the overall total vaccine production from the factory is 2,609,800 as at the end of May 2021.

Meanwhile, Zulkarnain said the factory is ramping up production to four million doses of vaccine a month in August.

''Currently our capacity is two million doses a month and we are finalising the report from Sinovac so that we can fill up to two doses but if the report is good we submit to NPRA (National Pharmaceutical Regulatory Agency) for the approval, then we meet the capacity four million dose per month.

"That is the strategy and if this happens hopefully as early as August we can supply up to four million doses a month to the government," he said.

Sinovac Life Sciences of China appointed Pharmaniaga as an exclusive distributor of Sinovac COVID-19 vaccine in Malaysia in a ceremony signed early this year.

-- BERNAMA