The Malaysian Insight

THE public will not be given the option of choosing the brand of Covid-19 vaccine that they want, as the country’s priority now is to accelerate the national vaccination process, said Khairy Jamaluddin.

His statement was an about-turn from the government’s earlier proposal that vaccine recipients can have their pick on the brand of jab that they want.

The National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme coordinating minister said this was because giving such an option would slow down the vaccination process.

“Initially the plan was to give the public the option to choose their vaccines but the concern now is to up vaccination,” he said today after visiting the Malaysia International Trade and Exhibition Centre mega vaccination centre in Kuala Lumpur.

Khairy, earlier in the week, said that the government was looking at the option to allow the public to choose their vaccines via the MySejahtera app.

Malaysia at present is administering the Pfizer, Sinovac and AstraZeneca vaccines in the national immunisation programme.

Khairy had previously said Malaysia would receive an additional delivery of vaccines from the makers of the three vaccines in the coming months to speed up the inoculation drive.

He said with the additional supplies, vaccination centres would be able to administer 150,000 doses a day in June.

On Friday, 73,776 people were vaccinated – 46,446 had their first dose and 27,330 their second dose – bringing the total number of people to have received at least one dose to 2,786,152, as of May 28.

Of these, 1,771,810 have received their first dose while 1,014,342 have had their second dose. – May 30, 2021.