PM: All adults in Malaysia to be fully vaccinated by October to counter variants, rise in cases
NIP being ramped up due to emergence of aggressive variants, says PM
THE government has set a new target of vaccinating all adults in the country by October. Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin, in announcing this yesterday, said this was due to the Covid-19 National Immunisation Programme (NIP) being ramped up following the discovery of aggressive variants and the sharp increase in positive cases.
He said 100 per cent of the adult population in Selangor and Kuala Lumpur would receive at least one dose of vaccine by Aug 1 under “Operation Surge Capacity”.
As for Sarawak, Muhyiddin said 100 per cent of the adult population in the state would receive at least one dose of vaccine by the end of next month.
The prime minister said initially, the government had projected that 80 per cent of the country’s population would be fully vaccinated by the first quarter of next year.
“However, the target was then accelerated to December this year.
“Almost all states will record vaccination rates exceeding 50 per cent by the end of August, and 70 per cent by September.
“This is following an increase in capacity to achieve an inoculation rate of 500,000 doses daily,” he said in a Facebook post.
Muhyiddin said a major portion of the vaccines ordered would comprise Pfizer-BioNTech, with the remainder being Sinovac (23.4 per cent), AstraZeneca (10 per cent), CanSino (10.9 per cent) and others (10 per cent) from the Covid-19 Vaccine Global Access facility.
“To date, we have received 20 million doses,” he said.
Muhyiddin said the country would also take delivery of another 30 million doses of vaccines by month end, 40 million doses next month, 53 million doses in September and 58 million doses in October.
“The remaining doses will be received between November and January,” he said.
On July 13, Malaysia’s daily vaccination rate hit a record high of 421,479 doses, 264,034 of which were administered as the first dose, and 157,445 as the second.
Muhyiddin had then described the vaccination rate — one of the highest in the world — as good news for the country to achieve herd immunity before year end.
Page 1 caption: A worker from the Malaysia Vaccine Support Volunteers showing the Nepali, Urdu, Arabic and Tamil versions of a Covid-19 vaccination document at the World Trade Centre Kuala Lumpur inoculation centre yesterday.