Vaccination no-shows could face action, says Noor Hisham

 

Malaysia’s national immunisation campaign began this week, with frontliners being the first to be vaccinated. (AP pic)

PETALING JAYA: Health director-general Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah has not ruled out the possibility of action being taken against people who do not turn up to be vaccinated against Covid-19.

He said in other countries people were fined for “cutting the queue” to get inoculated. “But we are using the carrot rather than the stick approach,” he said at a dialogue this evening.

He said the ministry might emulate the practice in other countries where a vaccination would be given to someone else, such as the police or military personnel, if a person did not turn up for their shot.

“This way the vaccine won’t go to waste,” he said, adding that the ministry would look into other measures to prevent wastage.

No private firms involved with vaccines

On a separate matter, Noor Hisham said the sole responsibility to distribute the vaccine lay with the government. No private firms, he said, had been issued the licence to “sell and commercialise” the vaccine.

He said even if private hospitals were to carry out vaccinations, they would obtain the supply from the government.

“We don’t want to commercialise vaccines as we fear if we allow that to happen there will be queue-cutting and the possibility of fake vaccines coming in.”

He said Interpol had informed the ministry of fake vaccines “going around”.

Noor Hisham also said the government was not considering commercialising the vaccines, despite the argument that it could help Malaysia achieve herd immunity faster.

“Otherwise the rich will get the vaccine and the poor won’t get vaccinated,” he said.

Noor Hisham also played down concerns about the different efficacy rates of the various vaccines being used for the national immunisation campaign.

He said all vaccines had been approved by the National Pharmaceutical Regulatory Agency before they are distributed.

The first to be approved was the vaccine by Pfizer, recently shown to be 94% effective, as the comapny had submitted its vaccine for approval earlier.

“It will be a logistical challenge if people are allowed to select their own vaccines. It would be very difficult to fulfil such requirements,” he said.

“But rest assured, the vaccines have already been approved. It is not a clinical trial. The NPRA is responsible to ensure that all the vaccines fulfil the safety and efficacy requirements.” - FMT