KUALA LUMPUR (May 23): Pharmaniaga Bhd will supply 3.8 million Sinovac vaccine doses from its facilities by the end of next month.
On top of that, the government will also get 10.4 million doses of Sinovac vaccine from China by end-August, Senior Minister (Security) Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob informed at a press conference today.
He said 1.8 million out of the 3.8 million vaccine doses are ready, of which 290,480 have been delivered to the Ministry of Health, while 793,600 are pending approval from the National Pharmaceutical Regulatory Agency (NPRA).
Ismail Sabri said Pharmaniaga's facilities are capable of producing 500,000 doses of Sinovac vaccine a week, which it can produce some two million doses a month.
Therefore, given the 1.8 million doses that are already produced plus two million more expected at the end of next month, the country can expect 3.8 million doses to be rolled out in early July.
Ismail Sabri was speaking to the media virtually after taking a tour of Pharmaniaga's vaccine facilities.
He said by the end of next month, Malaysia would have some 8.2 million vaccine doses ready for the public, including three million to be expected from China.
In February, Pharmaniaga's wholly-owned subsidiary Pharmaniaga LifeScience Sdn Bhd (PLS) received 200 litres, equivalent to 300,000 doses of the first batch of supply of the Sinovac Covid-19 vaccine in bulk for the batch manufacturing validation process.
As for the 10.4 million doses from China, Ismail Sabri said 1.4 million of them already arrived from China. Additionally, there will be three million doses arriving from China in June, July and August.