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KUALA LUMPUR – The Health Ministry has finally revealed the total losses incurred by Malaysia as a result of imported Covid-19 vaccines becoming expired and therefore no longer usable.
In a brief written reply to the Dewan Negara dated April 10, Health Minister Dr Zaliha Mustafa disclosed that the estimated value of the expired doses is RM81.4 million.
This is for the close to 2.8 million vaccine doses that have surpassed their expiry dates as of the end of February.
“Up to February 28, 2023, a total of 2,796,638 vaccine doses of various brands have expired at Health Ministry (MoH) facilities and Covid-19 vaccine storage warehouses, with an estimated value of RM81.4 million,” she said.
She was responding to a question from Senator Datuk Ahmad Azam Hamzah on how many Covid-19 vaccines have gone past its expiry dates and the total losses incurred by the government.
The figure revealed is particularly concerning as Dr Zaliha had previously noted that a staggering total of 8.63 million more doses of vaccines of various brands will expire between the end of February and September this year.
With the extremely low take-up rate of booster shots in recent months, the majority of the remaining 8.63 million doses can be expected to go to waste, costing the government potentially hundreds of millions of ringgit.
Previously, multiple attempts by MPs to get the minister to reveal the cost of the expired vaccines were unheeded.
On March 21, Taiping MP Wong Kah Wong, who is former Public Accounts Committee chairman, expressed his disappointment at the ministry’s refusal to divulge these pertinent details.
Urging for greater transparency, Wong accused the ministry of hiding behind non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) signed with vaccine manufacturers.
This is after he received a written parliamentary reply from Dr Zaliha a day earlier stating the total vaccine doses that have expired. The minister, however, stopped short of mentioning the losses that had to be borne by the government due to the NDAs.
The National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme was rolled out by the previous government in February 2021 amid a spike in Covid-19 infections.
Then health minister Khairy Jamaluddin had said last March that the government had ordered 88.1 million Covid-19 vaccine doses as of February 18, 2022, at a cost of RM4.72 billion.
There have been concerns of late over reports of a rapid resurgence of Covid-19 infections globally and in Malaysia over the past month.
MoH has announced that 11 education clusters were reported from March 26 to April 1, following the opening of the school session in mid-March. – The Vibes, April 12, 2023
