Govt aiming to immunise 10% of population by mid-July
Advertisement
THE government wants to immunise 10% of the population against Covid-19 by mid-July, said Science, Technology and Innovation Minister Khairy Jamaluddin.
“Currently for every 100 doses that we administer, 30 doses are the second dose. So in order to immunise 10% of the population or 3.2 million people, we need to administer roughly 10.7 million doses, taking into consideration the ratio that I mentioned just now,” he said in a weekly joint press conference with Health Minister Dr Adham Baba.
“We are aiming to administer 8 million doses in June and hopefully we will reach 10.7 million by mid -July,” Khairy, the co-ordinating minister for the national Covid-19 immunisation programme, said.
“This will involve ramping up our daily capacity. We feel like we can reach 10.7 million doses, and therefore 10% of the population, by mid-July. That is our present projection at the moment,” he added.
He said the projection is based on several factors including vaccine supplies and capacity of vaccination centres (PPV).
Meanwhile, Khairy said the government is still waiting for a response from Covax about the supplies of the Janssen vaccine from Johnson & Johnson.
Covax, or the Covid-19 vaccine global access platform, is co-ordinated by the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation (Gavi), the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness (Cepi) and the World Health Organization, while Unicef is its key delivery partner.
“We haven’t received any feedback from Covax. We have exercised our option to choose Johnson & Johnson,” he said.
“However, Covax has not given Malaysia a delivery date for the Johnson and Johnson vaccine,” he added.
Malaysia previously procured AstraZeneca vaccines from the Covax facility.
Meanwhile, he added that the government is also finalising the delivery schedule for vaccines from China based CanSino Biologics. The first consignment is expected to arrive and be distributed next month.
On June 15, the Drug Control Authority gave a conditional approval for the two vaccines. – June 21, 2021.