KJ: No proof linking blank shots to vaccine-selling syndicates for now

 

There has been no evidence to suggest a link between alleged blank vaccine shots and illegal vaccine sales, minister in charge of Covid-19 Immunisation Task Force (CITF) Khairy Jamaluddin said today.

“Police have informed that as of now, there is no link at all between alleged empty shots and alleged vaccine sales.

“The first thing that I would like to categorically say today is that of those cases that have been reported, empty vaccinations have nothing to do and are not linked to any vaccination-selling syndicate,” he said in an online press conference this afternoon.

“I think for many people who make the conclusion that our frontliners are somehow involved in a (vaccine-selling) syndicate is untrue,” he added.

Khairy shared that the blank shot case that happened on July 17 at the Lapangan Terbang Sungai Petani drive-through vaccine administration centre (PPV) was not done on purpose.

“This is the one case where the nurse admitted that an accident had happened as the nurse was tired,” he said.

Of the 13 police reports filed about alleged blank shots, investigations found they were either untrue, inconclusive or pointed to “negligence” and “human error”.

The minister hoped the public would see these alleged cases in context of the more 16 million doses already administered.

“These are the cases of alleged empty vaccination that have shown to reflect some element of negligence, in particular the case in Sungai Petani.

“I would like to urge the public to understand the context of these cases and to ensure that we preserve the integrity of the National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme (NIP), and also the integrity of thousands of nurses, doctors and frontliners who are risking their lives vaccinating at the rate of half a million a day.

“And if there is human error, human negligence in one or two cases, we do not paint the entire programme and do not blame all frontliners who are sacrificing themselves on a daily basis for us to control this pandemic,” he pleaded.

[More to follow] - Mkini