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KUALA LUMPUR – The National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme officially begins today with Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin first in line.
Muhyiddin is scheduled to receive the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine at about 3pm.
Also in line for the vaccine today is Health Director-General Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah and four other Health Ministry staff.
They will receive the vaccine at the Presint 11 Health Clinic, Putrajaya, which is one of more than 500 vaccination centres (PPV) identified nationwide.
The implementation of the three-phase programme, which starts two days earlier than the originally set date of February 26, will see more than 500,000 frontliners receive the vaccine during the first phase, from now until April.
On Sunday, a total of 312,390 doses of Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine safely arrived in the country, with some being flown to Kuala Lumpur and Penang, while others were transported overland to Johor.
The vaccine was brought in from Singapore which is a distribution hub for Covid-19 vaccines to Asia Pacific.
To date, 571,802 frontline members have registered for the immunisation with 57.3% being medical and healthcare personnel, while the remaining 42.7% are members of the security sector including the Malaysian Armed Forces, Royal Malaysia Police, People’s Volunteer Corps, Prisons Department, Royal Malaysian Customs Department and the Fire and Rescue Department of Malaysia.
The second phase of the programme will run from April to August, involving senior citizens aged 60 and above as well as vulnerable groups with morbidity issues and persons with disabilities, while the third phase is scheduled from May this year to February 2022 for all those aged 18 and above not vaccinated before.
The programme aims to provide immunisation against the Covid-19 infection to about 80% of the country’s population, both locals and foreigners.
Malaysia has signed agreements to obtain 66.7 million doses of Covid-19 vaccines through the Covax Facility, from five manufacturers – Pfizer-BioNTech, AstraZeneca, Sinovac, CanSino and Gamaleya.
Since the first case of Covid-19 was reported in the country on January 25 last year, a total of 288,229 people have been infected with the virus as of yesterday, with 1,076 deaths recorded for the same period. – Bernama, February 24, 2021
