Singapore (CU)_ According to the COVID-19 multi-ministry task force, COVID-19 vaccines, like Sinovac from China, have been purchased in advance to ensure that they can be administered in Singapore as soon as possible. These agreements and purchases were made even before the vaccines were accepted by the Health Sciences Authority (HSA) for use in Singapore. The task force was questioned as to why the Sinovac vaccine arrived before it was approved for use in Singapore, and why Singapore was unable to refuse the shipment and weather Singapore intended to avoid disturbing Beijing.
According to Associate Professor Kenneth Mak, director of medical services at the Ministry of Health (MOH), agreements for procurement of vaccines were made last year with the manufacturers of the Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, and Sinovac vaccines. Prof Mak said, “The advance purchasing agreements included a timeline for when these vaccines will be provided, and based on the time frame, these vaccines would be delivered to Singapore by the manufacturers”.
On February 23, the first batch of Sinovac vaccine was sent to Singapore. HSA stated at the time that Sinovac had begun sending preliminary data and that it was awaiting all appropriate information to complete its assessment. On Monday, the HSA announced that it had begun reviewing Sinovac results. On Wednesday, Health Minister Gan Kim Yong announced that 200,000 Sinovac doses had been shipped to Singapore as part of a deal with a supplier. However, he said the vaccine is still awaiting approval. He said, “We allow the delivery to arrive, but we do not yet allow the vaccine to be used, because we haven’t approved the use”.
Prof Mak stated that the Sinovac manufacturer had not submitted a full package containing all of the data required to complete the evaluation phase, and that the HSA had requested additional details. He said, “Until that additional data is submitted, HSA will not be able to complete its evaluation process, and therefore would not be able to give it its provisional approval”.
