‘SLOW VACCINATION’ CLAIM BINNED
COORDINATING minister for the immunisation programme says vaccines brought into the country are used promptly. The real issue is a supply bottleneck.
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THE government’s decision to remove the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine from the general National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme (NIP) was prompted by the mass withdrawal of NIP participants.
Science, Technology and Innovation Minister Khairy Jamaluddin said when the government took delivery of the AstraZeneca vaccine and announced its impending use, around 8,000 people who had signed up for the NIP promptly cancelled their registrations.
Khairy, who is also the NIP coordinating minister, said the authorities also noticed a trend of people not showing up for their vaccine appointments.
“The number of people cancelling their NIP registration kept rising. After further discussions, the Covid-19 Vaccine Supplies Access Guarantee Special Committee (JKAV) decided to remove the AstraZeneca vaccine from the mainstream programme.
“Following this, 80 per cent of those who had cancelled subsequently re-registered with the NIP,” he said at a press conference with Health Minister Datuk Seri Dr Adham Baba on the NIP yesterday.
The AstraZeneca vaccine is now an opt-in programme, where those interested can sign up online to be vaccinated. All 268,800 vaccination appointments in the Klang Valley were snapped up within three hours of registration being opened on Sunday.
Khairy said the episode indicated “vaccine hesitancy” towards the brand and said an indepth review on the matter would be done.
He said the authorities would also do a “deep dive” to determine the demographics which were generally vaccine-hesitant and later release the results to the public.
“While we do our best to communicate (the benefits of the AstraZeneca vaccine to the public), we don’t want to interrupt the NIP.
“We noticed that people were cancelling their registration and not turning up for their shots. That is something that concerned us greatly.
“There comes a stage where science, however effectively communicated to the public, cannot keep pace with conspiracy theories.”
He said the authorities would continue with the AstraZeneca vaccine rollout, with more doses arriving soon.
He said 1.1 million more doses of the vaccine were expected to arrive this month through the Covax facility, with 610,000 directly from the producer in June, 410,00 in July and 1.2 million in August and September.
He said the opt-in programme would also be expanded to community clinics to ensure that it could also be accessed by those unable to access the registration website (website http://vaksincovid.gov.my) or the MySejahtera app.
Khairy dismissed claims that the country’s vaccination rate was slow, saying that the utilisation rate of the Covid-19 vaccine currently stood at 75 per cent.
He said from 1,938,660 doses of vaccines available in the country at the moment, 1,453,382 had been administered.
“The issue is with the supply of Covid-19 vaccine available in the country. This is reflected in the utilisation rate of the Covid-19 vaccines,” he said.
Khairy had last month lambasted rich countries for vaccine hoarding, describing the act as “cruel and unjust” against poor and less developed countries.
Amnesty International, in its annual report, recently condemned the rich world’s “nearmonopoly” on Covid-19 vaccines. It was reported that the richest countries had effected a nearmonopoly of the world’s supply of vaccines, leaving countries with the least resources to face the worst health and human rights outcomes.
Khairy said the government hoped to increase the vaccine utilisation rate to 80 per cent after the Hari Raya Aidilfitri holidays.
He said 9,701,160 people, equivalent to 40 per cent of the population, had registered for the NIP. A total of 563,350 people had been fully vaccinated while 905,683 people had received their first jab of the vaccine.
Khairy also urged the Sarawak government to reconsider its decision not to use the AstraZeneca vaccine.
“Nevertheless, it is up to the Sarawak government to decide whether to accept the use of AstraZeneca or otherwise.
“If the state government decides to use AstraZeneca, I am open to extending it to Sarawak,” he said.