Malaysia has sufficient vaccines to cover 80% of population by October: Khairy
Minister for Science, Technology and Innovation Khairy Jamaluddin. (File photo: Bernama)
KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysian Science, Technology and Innovation Minister Khairy Jamaluddin has assured the public that the country will have enough COVID-19 vaccines to vaccinate 80 per cent of the population by October. Â
In a tweet posted on Tuesday (Apr 13), Mr Khairy shared a graph by the COVID-19 Vaccine Supply Access Guarantee Special Committee (JKJAV) that compares the projection of vaccine delivery to the number of registrations for the vaccine to date.Â
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“The green line is the delivery schedule of all the vaccines Malaysia has procured. The yellow line is the registration status as of now and the light blue line is PICK's target," he wrote, referring to the National COVID-19 Immunisation Programme's goal of vaccinating 80 per cent of its 32 million population.Â
“The supply will begin to overtake the registrations in June. (Vaccinations) will definitely be completed before the end of the year,” he wrote.Â
The graph showed that the current total registrations far exceeded the vaccine supply at the moment. Vaccine supply would only match the current registrations in June, and cover 80 per cent of the population around October.Â
“Current deliveries still low. Largely due to the stark vaccine inequity of advanced countries condemned by WHO (World Health Organization) and UN (United Nations),” Mr Khairy said.Â
As of Monday, about 400,000 individuals have been fully vaccinated and about 600,000 others have received the first dose of COVID-19 vaccine. Vaccine registrations stood at 8.6 million, according to JKJAV.
On Monday, Mr Khairy said that Malaysians aged 60 and above will be given the Sinovac vaccine under phase two of the immunisation programme.
The JKJAV made the decision after taking into consideration the latest data and data from other countries that showed the Sinovac vaccine is safe, effective and stable for those aged 60 and above, Mr Khairy said.
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