Why the government cannot reveal vaccine prices

Photo: Reuters

On Dec 22, 2020, Science, Technology and Innovation Minister Khairy Jamaluddin announced that the Malaysian government will spend RM2.05bil to purchase vaccines for 26.5 million Malaysians. If every person receives two doses, that works out to approximately RM39 a dose on average, which is a very reasonable price and appears globally competitive.

These vaccines are an important tool in our ability to fight the pandemic. Malaysia has done well to sign procurement agreements with several companies to deliver enough vaccines to cover 83% of our population. However, this important milestone is being overshadowed by questions regarding the transparency of prices from each individual company.