Govt urged to speed up Covid-19 vaccination process for private dentists

 

The Malaysian Private Dental Practitioners Association (MPDPA) has urged the government to speed up the Covid-19 vaccination process for private dentists nationwide.

This came after MPDPA furnished a list of dentists to the health district offices one month ago but many have yet to be called for vaccination.

"We wish to thank the Selangor Health Department and the dental enforcement of Federal Territories Kuala Lumpur for their prompt response on our request to speed up the vaccination drive for our private dentists.

"However, many private dentists have yet to be called for their vaccination in other states as well," MPDPA president Dr P Mahendran said in a statement today.

"We are worried that this could be due to the difficulty of the Health Ministry to identify our private dentists because all of them registered for their vaccination under the same MySejahtera app like all other citizens.

"We are also aware that the health district offices have yet to receive the list of private dentists registered under MPDPA for their vaccination. This list has been sent out more than one month ago.

"We hope the ministry recognises the importance of the private dentists to be vaccinated soon due to the risk we are exposed to daily and thus speed up the process of vaccination," he said.

Under the National Immunisation Programme (NIP) guideline, private dentists are listed under category 2 along with general practitioners (GPs), private specialist clinics, the defence and security forces, police personnel, primary and secondary school teachers and other essential services personnel.

The Malaysian Medical Association (MMA) had urged the government to place all healthcare workers under category 1 as they are directly exposed to the risk of Covid-19. 

Phase 1 of NIP aimed to vaccinate about 500,000 frontliners by April, while Phase 2 is scheduled from April to August, targeting 9.4 million senior citizens aged 60 and above and high-risk groups.

The following phase is slated to start in May until February 2022, aimed at vaccinating about 13.7 million people.

Last week, Science, Technology and Innovation Minister Khairy Jamaluddin said the government would review its policy if the uptake for the inoculation is still low in July when the country is poised to get millions of doses of the vaccine from manufacturers.

As of April 5, a total of 2.34 million people or nearly 25 percent of the 9.4 million targetted have qualified under Phase 2 of the NIP.  - Mkini