Cooperation the key to vaccination surge success, says Ong

 

More Sinovac supplies are now available, opening the way for the new programme, says Ong Kian Ming.

PETALING JAYA: Coordination between the international trade and industry ministry (Miti) and Selangor’s Covid-19 vaccination programme (Selcare) will be crucial in ensuring the success of Operation Surge Capacity, says its Selangor coordinator Ong Kian Ming.

Miti is running the public-private partnership Covid-19 industrial immunisation programme (Pikas), and Ong said that coordination between the two agencies will prevent an overlap between companies that want to get their workers vaccinated during the July 26-Aug 1 OSC – an ambitious plan to ramp up vaccination rates in the Covid-19 sieged Klang Valley.

He said Selcare needs to work with MySejahtera to ensure that the status of those who have been vaccinated through the Selvax programme is updated as soon as possible so that they are not given a vaccination slot under MySejahtera.

“MySejahtera’s ability to update their database to take into account the Selvax vaccination is crucial in enabling the OSC programme to achieve its objective of vaccination (every adult) in the Klang Valley by Aug 1,” he said.

Yesterday, immunisation minister Khairy Jamaluddin said every adult in Selangor and Kuala Lumpur will receive at least one dose of the Covid-19 vaccine by Aug 1.

He also projected daily vaccination rates to rise from the current 180,000 doses a day to 210,000 a day starting next week before hitting 272,000 a day during the July 26-Aug 1 OSC.

Speaking to FMT, Ong said that the OSC was made possible due to the availability of more Sinovac vaccine doses.

On Wednesday, Pharmaniaga, which has been tasked with supplying Sinovac vaccines in Malaysia, said it would be supplying 12.4 million doses of the vaccine by next week, which is four months ahead of schedule.

“We are only beginning to receive the bulk of the Sinovac orders this month,” he said when asked whether the OSC should have been carried out earlier. “Even if we wanted to do it earlier in the Klang Valley, the supplies of vaccines would not have been sufficient.” - FMT