Tanjung Karang MP Noh Omar told the Dewan Rakyat on Wednesday that Pharmaniaga, which is a government-linked company, has an extra 3.2 million doses of Sinovac vaccines, a claim which the company has not denied.

In a statement today, Lim noted an internal document from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) which said the war against Covid-19 had changed because of the highly contagious Delta variant.

It said unvaccinated people were 10 times more likely to get seriously ill or die from the variant than those vaccinated.

“It is a matter of grave concern that after five months of the national immunisation rollout, we have only fully vaccinated 20% of Malaysians with two doses,” said the Iskandar Puteri MP.

“Now that the Delta variant is upon us, I call on vaccine minister Khairy Jamaluddin to buy up the 3.2 million doses of excess supply of Covid-19 vaccines held by Pharmaniaga to accelerate the national immunisation rollout,” he said.

Last month, deputy prime minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob said Pharmaniaga would be selling 14 million doses of Sinovac vaccines to interested states and private companies from July until September.

Noting that Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin said last year that Covid-19 vaccines would be given free to all Malaysians, former minister Rafidah Aziz had questioned why the public should be made to pay to get vaccinated if the vaccines were bought with public funds.

“If the monopoly company bought the vaccines, why should the government allow it to make a profit from the public?” she said.

“Lower-income people cannot pay, so they will be waiting longer (for vaccines) and be more exposed (to Covid-19). Imagine the potential spread of infections. The delays will be the government’s fault.”