The Malaysian Insight

VACCINATING the teenage population is now Malaysia’s top priority to ensure there is broad vaccine coverage in the country, Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin said today.

“We should no longer look at herd immunity but, instead, ensure that vaccine coverage is as wide and broad as possible. Which is why vaccinating the adolescent population is so important,” he said in answering Ahmad Maslan’s (BN) question on herd immunity.

“When we first started the vaccination programme, we used a conventional formula to determine herd immunity, which was said to be between 70% and 80%.

“That was before the spread of the Delta variant. Delta has basically thrown out the herd immunity calculation, and it is difficult to say when we will achieve herd immunity,” he said.

Covid-19 walk-in vaccination for teenagers started today at 156 vaccination centres nationwide.

Up to September 20, more than 300,000 teens have received their first jab since the programme kicked off in Sarawak on September 8.

The ministry is also looking at clinical trial data from United States pharmaceutical company Pfizer in relation to vaccines for children below the age of 12.

“It is not enough to vaccinate 80% to 90% of the adult population because the children are unvaccinated.”

When asked by Dr Dzulkefly Ahmad (Kuala Selangor-PH) about Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob’s announcement yesterday that interstate travel would be allowed once 90% of the adult population is vaccinated, Khairy said that the ministry expects that more than 50% of the entire population would be vaccinated by then.

“We have projected that when we reach 90% of the vaccination rate among the adult population, the coverage in the entire population will be 60%. At the same time, we will be catching up on teenage vaccination.”

Khairy responded to Dr Lee Boon Chye’s (Gopeng-PH) question about breakthrough deaths, saying that it accounted for 0.01% of all Covid-19 deaths to date.

“The rate of breakthrough deaths is 0.01% while those who (required) treatment in the intensive care unit is 0.007%. This shows that the vaccines are effective.”

To step up contact tracing, Khairy said the government may introduce a token system, as in Singapore.

“The token will use Bluetooth proximity technology, and it is being developed by the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation, for people who do not have smartphones.” – September 23, 2021.