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Covid-19 Vaccines for Malaysia:
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A Call for Transparency in Registration & Purchasing
Citizens’ Health Initiative
citizenhealthinitiative@gmail.com
December 28, 2020
With the exception of the People’s Republic of China and a few other countries like New Zealand,
Vietnam, Cuba, Senegal, and Kerala state in India, which seem to have largely brought Covid-19 under
control without the help of vaccines, most countries are struggling with succeeding waves of the
pandemic and a likely global spread of a more contagious mutant of SARS-CoV-2.
The collateral damage to economic and social well-being worldwide has been unprecedented, and it
underscores the urgently felt need for vaccines and a return to some semblance of normalcy
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.
Despite a major lapse with a religious gathering of 16,000+ which erupted into several clusters locally
and in the region (March 2020), Malaysia had performed creditably earlier.
Simmering Protracted Covid-19 with Periodic Outbreaks?
Unfortunately, since October 2020, a resurgence of clusters emerged from non-compliant returnees
from abroad, and porous Sabah state border controls, exacerbated by lax enforcement of SOPs during
the September 2020 Sabah state elections.
Immigration and health authorities were not sufficiently pro-active to prevent its further spread in the
peninsula, resulting in numerous outbreaks, especially among workers in congested accommodations
and workplaces, and in prisons and detention centres.
Unlike Singapore’s experience with outbreaks in migrant dormitory complexes, we in Malaysia are
additionally reaping the consequences of decades of corrupt mismanagement of the ‘supply chain’ for
foreign labor, viz. a persistently large pool of undocumented migrant workers (currently estimated at
1.23-1.46 million)
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who have strong incentives to avoid contact with government agencies.
Senior Minister Ismail Sabri’s disastrous U-turn in going after undocumented migrants (after initially
promising them sanctuary and no arrests and deportation during the pandemic) greatly complicated
pandemic control efforts, in particular the crucially important contact tracing.
Often younger and daily paid as workers, undocumented migrants are now even more inclined to ride
out the milder symptoms of a Covid-19 infection, rather than risk arrest, detention and deportation if
they surfaced to cooperate with testing, isolation, and contact tracing.
We thus face the prospect of protracted and repeated seeding of the general population by the
asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic, especially undocumented workers reluctant to seek treatment
unless severely ill. (We should also note that active avoidance of contact tracing and testing involves
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https://www.theonlinecitizen.com/2021/01/08/covid-19-vaccines-for-malaysia-a-call-for-transparency-in-registration-
purchasing/#sdfootnote10sym
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we should also note that the efficacy of first-generation vaccines was mostly evaluated for protection against overt
clinical illness, which may not translate into efficacy against infectivity or viral transmission. What can we expect from first-
generation COVID-19 vaccines? https://www.thelancet.com/article/S0140-6736(20)31976-0/fulltext
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MALAYSIA: Estimating the Number of Foreign Workers
http://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/892721588859396364/pdf/Who-is-Keeping-Score-Estimating-the-Number-
of-Foreign-Workers-in-Malaysia.pdf
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others disinclined to divulge network contacts or contact history, e.g. underworld elements, drug and
sexual encounters, etc).
As in many other countries, most Malaysians support efforts to secure vaccines to enhance pandemic
control efforts.
Procuring Vaccines for Malaysia
The minister for Science, Technology, and Innovation Khairy Jamaluddin has announced
commitments to purchase a basket of Covid-19 vaccines, and options for further orders
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.
Khairy Jamaluddin needs to be transparent about the technical rationales, criteria, and pricing for his
ministry’s purchasing decisions. In particular, he needs to respond to very pertinent points raised by
the Covid Research Centre (KL)
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, chest specialist Dr Jeyakumar Devaraj
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, and others, which include
the following:
• there is currently little information on longer-term safety beyond 2 months or on durability of
protection, for all candidate or approved vaccines (any late-manifesting adverse effects will
only be detected by conscientious follow-up surveillance, monitoring, and reporting systems).
This is especially pertinent for novel mRNA vaccines, in comparison with the more familiar
inactivated whole-virus vaccines with which we have decades of experience
• the decision by the UK’s Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) to
grant immunity to Pfizer from legal liability for late-manifesting adverse effects, and the Pfizer
CEO declining to be among the early vaccinees (professing selflessness in prioritising those
more vulnerable
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, in contrast to some vaccine researchers who courageously vaccinated
themselves even before phase 1 human trials) perhaps reflects the true risk perception and
calculus of the pharmaceutical corporations (not forgetting the generous subsidies for their
vaccine research and development from governments bent on ‘vaccine nationalist’ priorities)
• stringent logistic requirements (deep-freeze or ultra-low temperature facilities) for the mass
deployment of mRNA vaccines to under-served remote areas
• one additional advantage of the inactivated whole-virus vaccine is that the host immune
response is mounted against a spectrum of antigens from the whole virus, rather than against
a much more limited array of antigenic sub-components of say, the spike protein. This could
provide some insurance against mutations, say in the coding sequences for the spike protein,
which might render vaccines directed solely against the spike protein wholly or partially
ineffective.
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Malaysia needs 90 to 120 days just to check Pfizer's vaccine? Are you kidding DG?
https://www.theedgemarkets.com/article/malaysia-needs-90-120-days-just-check-pfizers-vaccine-are-you-kidding-dg;
Malaysia Reserves Option to Double Pfizer Vaccine Order https://codeblue.galencentre.org/2020/12/23/malaysia-reserves-
option-to-double-pfizer-vaccine-
order/#:~:text=By%20CodeBlue%20%7C%2023%20December%202020&text=KUALA%20LUMPUR%2C%20Dec%2023%20%
E2%80%94%20The,the%20Malaysian%20population%20if%20needed.; Malaysia to Double AstraZeneca Vaccine Order
Through Covax https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-12-23/malaysia-to-double-astrazeneca-vaccine-order-
through-covax-deal
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Is the Pfizer vaccine suitable for Malaysia? https://www.astroawani.com/berita-malaysia/is-the-pfizer-vaccine-suitable-
for-malaysia-272804
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COVID-19 vaccine: Hold your horses, let us play safe!
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Pfizer’s CEO hasn’t gotten his Covid vaccine yet, saying he doesn’t want to cut in line
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/14/pfizers-ceo-hasnt-gotten-his-covid-vaccine-yet-saying-he-doesnt-want-to-cut-in-
line.html
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Beyond the immediate urgency of securing access to adequate quantities of safe, efficacious and
affordable vaccines, the larger question of our continuing dependency on foreign vaccine developers,
producers and suppliers remains unaddressed
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.
National Capabilities in Production of Medicines and Vaccines
Consider Cuba, a nation of 12 million citizens hamstrung by a 60-year economic blockade by the US,
which has nonetheless invested in human and material resources to become a biotech power-house:
interferon (IFN)-α2b, recombinant hepatitis B vaccines, synthetic polysaccharide vaccine against
Haemophilus influenzae type B
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, CIMAvax vaccine against lung cancer
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, and innovative treatment of
diabetic foot ulcers.
Cuba’s repeated offers of scientific collaboration in R&D, and joint ventures to position Malaysia as a
regional production and distribution platform for Southeast Asia
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, have elicited only a lukewarm
response. Tan Sri Dr Abu Bakar Suleiman, the retired Director General of Health, and Johan Indot,
have shown greater foresight and entrepreneurial verve as chairman and founding deputy chair of
Bioven
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, a Malaysian initiative which is shepherding CIMAvax through US-FDA and UK phase 3
clinical trials
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.
It is not too late to make the necessary strategic decisions for a promising growth area (pharmaceuticals
and vaccines) in the national and regional economies of the newly launched RCEP
for more information/clarifications, please contact:
Chan Chee Khoon cheekhoon50@gmail.com
Chee Heng Leng cheehengleng@gmail.com
Endorsers
Agora Society
Aliran
Childline Foundation
Citizens’ Health Initiative
Freedom
Health Equity Initiatives (HEI)
Kuala Lumpur & Selangor Chinese Assembly Hall (KLSCAH)
Malaysian Physicians for Social Responsibility (MPSR)
MUDA
North South Initiative
Parti Sosialis Malaysia (PSM)
Pengguna Pahang
Pergerakan Tenaga Akademik Malaysia (GERAK)
Persatuan Sahabat Wanita Selangor
Reproductive Rights Advocacy Alliance Malaysia
Suara Rakyat Malaysia (SUARAM)
Third World Network (TWN)
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Pandemic Influenza Preparedness: In Search of a Global Health Ethos
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/319501083_Pandemic_Influenza_Preparedness_In_Search_of_a_Global_Healt
h_Ethos
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Synthetic Vaccine Is a Sweet Victory for Cuban Science https://science.sciencemag.org/content/305/5683/460
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CIMAvax: The Cuban Lung Cancer Vaccine Explained
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pguZ2d9G6g0&ab_channel=RoswellParkComprehensiveCancerCenter
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Cuba exploring possibility of producing vaccines in M’sia https://www.malaysiakini.com/news/410301
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How biotech firm Bioven found fortune https://www.thestar.com.my/lifestyle/health/2015/02/11/how-biotech-firm-
bioven-found-fortune?view=full
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Roswell Park lung cancer expert shares initial findings from first North American Study of CIMAvax
https://www.roswellpark.org/newsroom/201809-roswell-park-lung-cancer-expert-shares-initial-findings-first-north-
american-study; Bioven Begins Phase III Trial of Cuban NSCLC Vaccine in UK https://ihsmarkit.com/country-industry-
forecasting.html?ID=1065971583