Private Hospitals & States Can Buy Own Vaccines But Must Wait Their Turn If From Same Suppliers

By Edleena Sephia  •  03 Jun 2021 in News

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The National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme (NIP) Minister, Khairy Jamaluddin announced today that state governments and private hospitals can now purchase Covid-19 vaccines other than Pfizer and Sinovac which is currently being used in the NIP.

According to Malay Mail, Khairy said the vaccines must be those approved by the World Health Organisation (WHO) which includes China’s Sinopharm and Moderna from the US.

“If the state wants to purchase their own vaccines and bring these other vaccines in, they can go ahead; we can even facilitate them.”

He denied the rumours of the slow Covid-19 vaccine supply is caused by political monopoly and added that states are free from purchasing their own supplies of vaccines.

State government and private hospitals who are interested in obtaining the vaccines must register with the Health Ministry’s National Pharmaceutical Regulatory Agency (NPRA), Khairy said, adding that it will an easy procedure.

State governments and private hospitals who wish to place orders for Pfizer and Sinovac must wait in line as the federal government must first supply doses to those who have registered with the NPR programme.

“However, if the states want to obtain vaccines from the same suppliers as the federal government, such as for Sinovac and Pfizer, they will have to wait for the supplier to fulfil the federal government’s orders first.

“The suppliers must fulfil our orders first and once that is fulfilled, then they can supply to the states,” he said.

With Sinovac recently approved by WHO, it joins Pfizer, AstraZeneca, Sinopharm, Serum Institute of India, Janssen and Moderna as vaccines declared by the organisation for emergency use.