Vaccine recipients may soon be able to choose their type of vaccine.
According to Khairy Jamaluddin, the minister in charge of the country's Covid-19 immunisation programme, they are looking at giving the option via the MySejahtera application.
“I am looking at providing the option to the public, where they can choose what vaccine they will receive.
“This would be done via MySejahtera, which will see an upgrade soon,” he told reporters during a virtual press conference this evening.
The science, technology and innovation minister had called for the presser to give the latest update on the National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme (NIP), following yesterday's opt-in registration for the AstraZeneca vaccine.
Since NIP started in February, recipients are not given the option to choose which type of vaccines they receive.
An exception was later made for AstraZeneca when Putrajaya took the vaccine out of mainstream NIP as certain quarters were concerned over blood clot cases reported among its recipients in other countries.
To date, only vaccines from three sources have been approved by Malaysia's health authority, namely Pfizer, Sinovac and AstraZeneca.
Khairy told reporters that the Covid-19 Immunisation Task Force (CITF) is still working out on the method to be used, and expects that more can be revealed in two weeks' time.
Among the things that they are looking at include providing options for MySejahtera users to choose the date for their appointment and venue.
"We want to make the process as easy as we can," he said.
The minister also stressed that there will be no more online booking via the website as CITF had done for AstraZeneca opt-in registrations, saying that they have learnt their lesson after yesterday's brouhaha.
For the record, CITF and Khairy personally have received a lot of brickbats since yesterday, when the system they used for the registration process experienced technical issues and caused many unable to get a slot.
Khairy told the press that authorities have also decided to bring the AstraZeneca vaccine into the NIP mainstream. This means that the vaccine will no longer be given only to those who agree to it.
The decision was made as AstraZeneca has gained trust and acceptance by members of the public, said Khairy.
"The opt-in option was used when there was a reluctance among the people to accept AstraZeneca due to some news that linked the vaccine to blood clot incidents.
"We made it opt-in so the public can make an informed decision individually.
"However, now, after the people have seen overwhelming support for the opt-in programme, we are seeing that the level of reluctance has gone down and the people no longer doubt this vaccine. It is now well accepted.
"So after this, we made a decision that in the coming months we will no longer give out AstraZeneca via opt-in but instead it will be brought back into the mainstream NIP."
On glitches that occurred during yesterday's AstraZeneca second online opt-in registration, Khairy said an investigation was being carried out by the government's Administrative Modernisation And Management Planning Unit or Mampu.
The minister said he also noted that some had raised the issue of a RM70 million budget allegedly allocated to develop the online registration system.
Khairy said this was not true and that the RM70 million was the maximum allocation for a list of systems including the system for genomic surveillance; management and monitoring of the NIP; the programme's dashboard; logistics management, the call centre and for integration with MySejahtera among others.
"The RM70 million was not only for the website but covers all the systems that I have listed in an earlier official statement. Even then, RM70 million is the ceiling. Not necessarily the actual spending," he said.
Khairy told reporters that he was unable to provide the exact figure offhand and would provide the amount later.
On complaints by some MySejahtera users who said they were given appointments for AstraZeneca although they had not registered for it, Khairy said this was technically impossible though the CITF had a theory on what might have happened.
According to the minister, it could be the users were registered by a third party without their consent.
"We learned that an organisation is doing mass bookings. We are not sure if they received consent (from users) or not. We are investigating this and will get back," he said. - Mkini
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