KUALA LUMPUR – Registration for members of the public to receive the Covid-19 vaccination is expected to kick off in March on a volunteer basis, said Science, Technology and Innovation Minister Khairy Jamaluddin.
He said there are five ways for the public to sign up for the vaccine, including via the MySejahtera application.
“If they do not have access to MySejahtera, they may go to the Covid-19 Vaccine Supplies Access Guarantee Special Committee website, which will be launched by the prime minister next week.
“In addition, there is a hotline (number to be announced later), manual registration at public and private clinics and hospitals, and lastly, for people living in rural areas, we will be working with state governments to get them to register these recipients, including senior citizens,” he said during the Ruang Bicara programme aired on Bernama TV yesterday.
Khairy, who is also the coordinating minister for the National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme, reiterated that the vaccination programme will begin with front-line workers.
“We will evaluate every application as many have requested that they (applicants) be categorised as frontliners.
“I can verify that Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin will be the first person to receive the Pfizer vaccine, followed by Health Director-General Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah, doctors, nurses and others. Ministers will have their turn a bit later,” he said.
On February 4, Muhyiddin was reported to have said that the three-phase immunisation programme would start at the end of this month, with the government targeting 80% of the country’s population or 26.5 million individuals to receive the vaccine free of charge.
The first phase (February to April) is for the 500,000 frontliners who are directly involved in the fight against Covid-19, while the second phase (April to August) will focus on the high-risk group comprising senior citizens aged 60 and above, and vulnerable group targeting those with morbidity problems such as heart disease, obesity, diabetes and high blood pressure, as well as persons with disabilities.
The third phase will span this May to next February, for those aged 18 and above.
On January 8, Khairy announced that the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine had been registered by the National Pharmaceutical Regulatory Agency, thus giving conditional approval for the use of the vaccine in the country.
Apart from Malaysia, 49 other countries have approved the vaccine, some of which have started using it.
The Pfizer vaccine is also the first Covid-19 vaccine to be validated by the World Health Organisation for emergency use. – Bernama, February 12, 2021
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