Vaccination rate accelerated in line with Covid-19 situation - KJ

 

PARLIAMENT | With Malaysia's per capita vaccination rate now among the fastest in the world, the National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme (NIP) is seen as an important shield in the fight against the virus and in achieving herd immunity.

Coordinating minister for the immunisation programme, Khairy Jamaluddin, when explaining NIP in the Dewan Rakyat today, said the percentage of the country’s population with at least one dose of the Covid-19 vaccine completed had surpassed some developed countries, like Japan, Australia, South Korea and New Zealand.

He said the immunisation programme, involving an allocation of RM5.8 billion, initially targeted 80 percent of the population to receive the vaccine by February next year, but had been brought earlier to December this year after taking into account the development.

"The duration has been further shortened to this October," Khairy said.

The tally for the daily Covid-19 vaccination recorded the highest yesterday, totalling 553,871 doses nationwide.

Khairy attributed the success of the programme to the involvement of various parties through a whole-of-government and whole-of-society approach, including the operation of the vaccination centres (PPV) which involved health and non-health workers.

As of July 22, he said, there were 2,313 PPVs of various types and capacities operating nationwide and involved 6,133 volunteers who are non-health workers.

The science, technology and innovation minister also thanked the parliamentary members for their assistance in helping their constituents to register for the vaccination, as well as provide transportation for them to go to the PPVs.

On the number of people who had registered for the NIP, he said the percentage was still low, at 61.7 percent of the total population, compared to the target of 80 percent.

He said as of last Monday, 20.13 million Malaysians had registered for the vaccination with 18.8 million of them aged 18 and above.

“Based on these statistics, it is clear that the number who registered is still low compared to the NIP target of 80 percent. If we look at the statistics on the vaccination registration in several states, the percentage is lower than the threshold value set under the National Recovery Plan for a state to move from one phase to another.

"The total adult population who is registered is 80.5 percent, with those aged 60 and above totalling 3.5 million people,” he said, adding that 89 percent of the senior citizens who are registered have received at least one dose of the vaccine.

Based on the total number of vaccines received, which was 26.38 million, Khairy said Klang Valley covering Kuala Lumpur, Selangor, Putrajaya, received the highest number of vaccine doses, totalling 9.09 million since the immunisation programme was implemented until last July 31, followed by Sarawak (3.65 million) and Johor. (2.06 million).

To date, these vaccines have passed the evaluation of the National Pharmaceutical Regulatory Division and obtained conditional registration approval from the Drug Control Authority (DCA) - Vaxzevria (AstraZeneca), Janssen (J&J), Comirnaty (Pfizer), CoronaVac (Sinovac) and Convidecia (CanSino). Covilo (Sinopharm) has also received conditional approval from the DCA.

- Bernama