'People turned away for booster shots due to error in coordination'

A Health Ministry official said cases of people being turned away for their Covid-19 booster shots were due to an error in coordination.

This was after the Health Ministry reduced the interval between the primer doses and the booster shot from six months to three months across the board, but some vaccination centres have yet to comply with the new directive.

"The Health Ministry and Protect Health have cascaded the instruction on new eligibility to all vaccination centres (PPV), but there was clearly an error in the coordination here," said Dr A Mahesh, the senior principal assistant director with the ministry's disease control division.

He was responding to a Twitter user's complaints about being turned away.

Apologies for this @FujiyamaOden. It shouldn't have happened.@KKMPutrajaya and @protecthealthco have cascaded the instruction on new eligibility to all PPVs, but there was clearly an error in coordination here.

We're glad you got your jab eventually - we'll keep improving. https://t.co/XH9V6r2T6L

— Dr Mahesh Appannan (@maheshappannan) December 30, 2021

"I was told to go home because my second AstraZeneca dose was in August and apparently, I need to wait two more months," said Twitter user @FujiyamaOden.

Mahesh apologised for the incident, stressing that it shouldn't happen.

"We're glad you got your jab eventually - we'll keep improving," he said.

Another Twitter user @mulwaree also complained about a similar experience.

"I called the PPV listed at Protect Health Corporation, all of the clinics said they have not received any memo about booster for AZ recipients and prefer not to register me, pending the memo. Typical Malaysian efficiency, right?" the user said.

Under the booster programme, the Health Ministry will send out appointments to those who have received their primer shots, with priority for the elderly.

However, those who wish to get their booster shot earlier may stand in for those who fail to turn up at certain clinics or vaccination centres.

Mahesh, in a separate Tweet, said as of yesterday, some 700,000 booster shot appointments have been sent out.

Previously, only Sinovac Covid-19 vaccine recipients need to get their booster shot after three months while the interval for AstraZeneca and Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine recipients was six months.

However, in the face of a looming Covid-19 wave involving the Omicron variant, the government decided to expedite all booster shots to three months.

Ramai yang tanya - adakah saya perlu buat apa-apa untuk dapatkan janji temu booster?

Jawapan ringkas: Tidak

KKM memang ada semua rekod mereka yang lengkap 2 dos (atau 1 dos Cansino/JJ). Kami akan hantar janji temu ke MySJ anda.

Yang tua dan berisiko tinggi diberi keutamaan.

— Dr Mahesh Appannan (@maheshappannan) December 30, 2021

- Mkini