Health minister Dzulkefly Ahmad said the expired vaccines represented 10.8% of the total 84.5 million doses received by the government since the national immunisation programme began on Feb 24, 2021.

“More or less, we bear the loss of RM185 million, which includes logistics, storage, warehousing, and other related costs,” Dzulkefly said in response to a question from Jalaluddin Alias (BN-Jelebu) on the quantity and cost of expired vaccines.

Dzulkefly said the ministry did not blame any party for the loss as there were no procurement guidelines for the vaccines.

“The ministers before me did not have SOPs, best practices or benchmarking because it was the first time we had faced a pandemic.

“There was an excess at that time due to the intense competition to procure vaccines. After facing the pandemic, we now have SOPs and best practices moving forward,” he said.