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Talk to India about getting more vaccines, says Najib
FMT Reporters
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February 6, 2021 1:25 PM
PETALING JAYA: Former prime minister Najib Razak has suggested that Malaysia open talks with India to procure vaccines from the world’s largest vaccine manufacturer.
In a Facebook post today, Najib attached a screenshot of a story from Indian digital news portal, The Wire, which stated that the Serum Institute of India has over 55 million doses of Covishield and has temporarily halted production of more due to a lack of uptake from the government.
“Malaysia only needs around 55 million doses to ensure that 80% of our population is vaccinated and achieves herd immunity,” he said.
“This means that the Indian plant is able to produce vaccines for all of Malaysia’s needs in just two weeks.
“We should start negotiating with India but do not send Mahathir to negotiate,” he said, referring to former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad.
Malaysia has agreements to purchase the Pfizer-BioNtech vaccine in addition to those from AstraZeneca, Sinovac and CanSinoBIO from China, as well as the Gamaleya National Centre in Russia.
The world’s largest vaccine manufacturer by volume, the Serum Institute of India produced more than 1.6 billion vaccine doses to be distributed in more than 170 countries last year.
It is currently producing millions of doses of the Covishield vaccine, developed by AstraZeneca and Oxford University, for India and other countries.
On Thursday, Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin unveiled plans for the country’s three Covid-19 vaccination phases, with the first to be rolled out at the end of this month and the second in April.
The third phase starts in May and will be completed by next February, with Najib questioning whether Malaysians were willing to wait that long.
“Who is willing to survive this Covid pandemic for another year?
“To achieve group immunity so that the country’s economy is restored, we are only safe when everyone is safe — including foreign workers.
“If not, local Covid-19 transmission cannot be stopped,” he said, adding that he was willing to be vaccinated “as soon as possible” because he believes in science.
