Sign up for Covid-19 vaccine from March, says Khairy

 

Khairy Jamaluddin during interviewed with Bernama TV. He said the government will use five methods to get people to register for the Covid-19 vaccination. (Bernama pic)

PETALING JAYA: The registration process for those who wish to receive the Covid-19 vaccine is set to start next month.

This was revealed by science, technology and innovation minister Khairy Jamaluddin during the “Ruang Bicara” programme aired on Bernama TV yesterday.

He said that it was a voluntary exercise and that those interested have five ways in which they could sign up for the vaccine, including via the MySejahtera application.

“If they have no access to MySejahtera, they may go to the JKJAV (Covid-19 Vaccine Supply Access Guarantee Special Committee) website, which will be launched by the prime minister next week.

“In addition, there is a hotline (number to be fixed later), manual registration at public and private clinics and hospitals, and lastly, for people living in the rural areas, we will be working with the state government to get them to register the recipients, including senior citizens,” he was quoted as saying by Bernama.

As reported previously, the vaccination programme will begin with frontline workers.

“We will evaluate every application as many have requested that they (applicants) be categorised as frontliners,” said Khairy, who is also the coordinating minister for the National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme.

Also on last night’s programme, Khairy said prime minister Muhyiddin Yassin will be the first recipient of the Pfizer vaccine at the end of this month.

“He will be followed by health director-general (Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah), doctors, nurses and others. Ministers will have their turn a bit later,” he added.

The first phase of vaccinations, from February to April, is for the 500,000 frontliners who are directly involved in the fight against Covid-19. The second phase, from April to August, will target the high-risk group, comprising senior citizens aged 60 and above and the vulnerable group with morbidity problems, such as heart disease, obesity, diabetes and high blood pressure, as well as persons with disabilities (PwD).

The third phase is from May 2021 to February 2022 and it is for those aged 18 and above.

The government announced on Jan 8 that the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine had been registered by the National Pharmaceutical Regulatory Agency (NPRA), with conditional approval for its use in the country.

Apart from Malaysia, 49 other countries have approved the vaccine and some of these countries have started using the vaccine.

The Pfizer vaccine is also the first Covid-19 vaccine to be validated by the World Health Organisation (WHO) for emergency use. - FMT