Phase 2 of vaccinations to start on April 19

 

Recipients waiting to receive their vaccine in the ongoing first phase of the national vaccination programme. (Bernama pic)

PETALING JAYA: The second phase of the national Covid-19 immunisation programme will begin on April 19, its coordinating minister, Khairy Jamaluddin, announced today.

He told a press conference appointments for recipients will be set through the MySejahtera app, phone calls or text messages from April 5.

Khairy, who is also the science, technology and innovation minister, said those under phase 3 would be allowed to get the vaccine early since there is sufficient supply, with only two million people categorised under phase 2 registered so far.

However, he clarified that those who are late in registering for phase 2 would be bumped ahead of phase 3 recipients.

“Once they register on the MySejahtera system, there’s an algorithm in place that will push them to the top of the queue. It will pick up that they’re above 60, disabled or suffer from co-morbidities.

“But while waiting for those in phase 2 , we decided that since there is enough supply of vaccines, we’ll let those in phase 3 to get the vaccine too,” he said, adding that he was confident registrations for phase 2 will increase over the next two weeks.

Khairy also said an agreement will be signed soon with industry players when the supply of vaccines is sufficient, to immunise workers in certain economic sectors.

“We will focus on companies with more than 5,000 workers and those in red zones or high-risk areas,” he said.

Under phase 1 of the immunisation programme, 90% of frontliners in the country have received their first dose of the vaccine. He expects the first phase to be completed in the next two weeks.

He said general practitioners (GPs) have been asked to provide an indicative list of patients who want to be immunised with them instead of vaccination centres, but added that he did not foresee high vaccination numbers from GPs.

Expecting GPs to only administer 30 jabs a day at most, he said the ministry will be careful in passing the vaccines to them since the Pfizer jabs are particularly challenging to handle.

Khairy also said the next shipment of Pfizer vaccines will arrive on Wednesday while an update on the Sputnik V vaccine is expected next week.

On prioritising the vaccines for haj pilgrims, he said Putrajaya has yet to receive the Saudi Arabia government’s official decision on requiring pilgrims to be immunised.

“Once we get the confirmation that it’s compulsory, then we will work with Tabung Haji to get the list of pilgrims approved to go for the haj this year so they can get the vaccine.”

He said there would be a sufficient supply to vaccinate these pilgrims, adding that there were few Malaysians expected to make the pilgrimage this year.

Khairy also told Malaysians to be honest when registering for the vaccine on the MySejahtera app, when asked if people could essentially lie to be categorised under phase 2.

“Please be honest. If indeed you don’t have any chronic illnesses, you will be found out,”he said. - FMT