At a joint press conference with health minister Dr Adham Baba, he said private sector participation has always been part of the government’s plan once a sufficient supply of vaccines has been secured.

This is to speed up the vaccination rate in the country.

“A lot of people have been saying, ‘Why don’t you open the private market for people who are willing to pay?’. That’s why in the month of August, there will be pharmaceutical companies with access to supplies of vaccines which will be able to offer them in the private market.”

Khairy said the Covid-19 Vaccine Supply Access Guarantee Special Committee will discuss the full guidelines at their meeting next week.

On the government’s announcement that it planned to phase out the Sinovac vaccine from the National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme, he said: “We have not pulled Sinovac from the national programme. The impression that has been given is that Sivovac is no longer favoured, but no.

“Sinovac and Pharmaniaga have delivered all their commitments to the federal government. In fact, we’ve added a few more orders from Pharmaniaga, that’s why the announcement was made that Sinovac would slowly be phased out.”

He said Sinovac would now be one of the vaccines to be made available on the private market when the guidelines were finalised.

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