By Alang Bendahara
SHAH ALAM, March 15 — The Selangor government is confident that it could clear up its supply of the Sinovac Covid-19 vaccine acquired for the Selangor Vaccination (Selvax) programme.
Menteri Besar Dato’ Seri Amirudin Shari told the Selangor State Legislative Assembly that the state administration had come up with several solutions to use and sell the doses allocated for the Selvax Industry initiative, which has a three-year expiration date.
“Initially, we wanted to acquire 2.25 million doses, but later lowered it to 1.25 million, and after the Federal government increased their supply and the stock had stabilised, we settled at 900,000 doses.
“Currently, we have around 200,000 doses left in our stock after 157,000 were allocated for the Selvax Booster programme,” he said to a question by Bandar Utama assemblyman Jamaliah Jamaluddin here today.
Amirudin said the state had started selling the supply in excess to several parties inside Selangor.
“We have plans to sell it to other states and also to other countries such as Indonesia and the Philippines. With demands in Malaysia and the region, we believe we can clear off the balance, more so once we sell it outside of Selangor,” he said.
Amirudin said that the vaccine doses could also be used by investors planning to visit countries that recognise Sinovac, such as China.
He added that the ongoing Selvax programme for booster shots and the immunisation of kids and adolescents could utilise the stock in hand.
Meanwhile, Selangor executive councillor for public health Dr Siti Mariah Mahmud had earlier informed the state assembly that as of February 28, the state has 63,132 doses out of the total n500,000 doses acquired for the Selvax Community programme.
She said that the vaccines expire on June 2023. The balance will be used to inoculate children aged five to 11 and sold off by Selgate Healthcare Sdn Bhd to clinics and hospitals.
In her answer to a supplementary question from Jamaliah on the pending issuance of vaccine certificate on MySejahtara for those under the Selvax initiative, Dr Siti Mariah said that the state administration is still ironing out the issue.
“MySejahtera wants to charge us for the issuance of this digital certificate. We are now negotiating with MySejahtera as it is not fair… when we started this, we were not told there would be any charges, but now there are.
“We have also sent all the data to MySejahtera, but they still have several issues. So we have taken the initiative to issue a certificate by Selgate for vaccine verification,” she said.
