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Khairy insisted that developed countries and the European Union (EU) have bought more vaccines than their populations need. -MalayMail photo
KUALA LUMPUR (June 26): Science and Technology Minister Khairy Jamaluddin today maintained his remarks that several European countries monopolize the distribution of vaccines, resulting in low rates of vaccination against Covid-19 in the country.
Speaking at a press conference today, Khairy said that developed countries and the European Union (EU) have bought more vaccines than their populations need.
He said the problem is not with the supply or import from Malaysia, but the real problem is that the vaccine doses have been accumulated by the EU and other developed countries.
EU Ambassador Michalis Rokas to Malaysia on Wednesday denied Khairy’s request and said the EU Secretariat had approved all of the Malaysian government’s vaccine requests without issue so far.
However, Khairy said today that the ambassador did not respond to his hoarding allegation and simply referred to Malaysia’s purchase of the vaccine.
I don’t think he understood what I said, yes we bought more than 4 million doses in Belgium.
I mentioned buying vaccines from the EU, they bought more than their population over hundreds of millions of doses.
Please do not block the import of vaccines into Malaysia
I talked about durian, he talked about rambutan, he said at a press conference today.
Rokas had said the EU had already shipped 4.087 million doses of Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine and approved the export of an additional five million doses to Malaysia.
He added that as of June 21, five million doses had been approved for export and 4,087,000 doses had already been effectively transported as of June 15.
Earlier this week, Khairy said EU countries were sourcing supplies as he responded to a comment to Utusan Malaysia that compared unfavorably the roll-out of the vaccination program in Malaysia and Hungary.
Khairy in response to the article asked if the writer was aware that Hungary is part of the EU.
Khairy claimed that the EU has negotiated with the vaccine manufacturers en bloc with its purchasing power.
He said some of the vaccine manufacturers are based in Europe and have been accumulating vaccines from the start. -MalayMail
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