‘Engage private sector to ramp up vaccination efforts’

KUCHING: The federal and state governments should engage the private sector to scale up the vaccination of the people under the National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme, said Batu Lintang assemblyman See Chee How.

The Parti Sarawak Bersatu lawmaker said many countries including Asian and Asean nations have rolled out their plans and put into motion a public-private sector cooperation initiative for their nationwide drive to expedite efforts in achieving herd immunity and economic recovery.

“Five days after Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin received his first dose of the vaccine, 3,500 Malaysians nationwide have been vaccinated as of yesterday (Sunday).

“This is a far cry from the projection revealed by Health Minister Datuk Seri Dr Adham Baba on Feb 13 that the government planned to administer around 126,000 doses of the Covid-19 vaccine a day once the national Covid-19 vaccination plan is rolled out,” he said in a statement yesterday.

See observed that Indonesia and Singapore were on average inoculating 120,000 and 20,000 of their populace every day, respectively.

Given this, he felt that the Health Ministry should step up efforts for immunisation in all 532 vaccination centres nationwide and must quickly enlist all private hospitals in the country to ramp up vaccination efforts.

This would help ensure Malaysia achieves the goal of attaining herd immunity faster, he added.

See recalled that two weeks ago, the Association of Private Hospitals of Malaysia had announced that all private hospitals in the country were ready to work with the government in vaccinating the public to speed up the immunisation programme.

At the same time, he said the government must have a comprehensive public health approach involving private commercial and industrial sectors focusing on the national and state economic recovery targets.

“The business community is in full support of the national vaccination exercise, and many have indicated their willingness and readiness to support the drive to immunise our population to break the chain of the pandemic and ensure that our economy will recover speedily.

“Whether the commercial and industrial activities are considered essential, it is costly to undergo swab tests regularly. It will be more cost effective for them to vaccinate their workers and associates,” he pointed out.

See said the government could coordinate and facilitate such private sector initiative and support for immunisation drive, thus enabling more commercial and industrial sectors to open and resume their commercial operation in phases.

He added that the guidelines of the World Health Organisation recommendations concerning the engagement of the private sector in national immunisation programmes and regulatory controls are standards and procedural benchmarks that Malaysia could follow to formulate a private sector drive which would complement the government’s efforts without altering or compromising the existing schedule to target priority and vulnerable groups in the process of the national vaccination exercise.

Five days after Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin received his first dose of the vaccine, 3,500 Malaysians nationwide have been vaccinated as of yesterday (Sunday).

See Chee How