KUALA LUMPUR – Covid-19 is likely to become endemic as mentioned by the World Health Organisation (WHO), and thus a different approach may be required to tackle it, said prime minister’s special adviser on public health Tan Sri Dr Jemilah Mahmood.
She said this would be so even if the country managed to bring down the number of daily cases and achieve herd immunity.
“Just like dengue, we continue taking measures like hygiene, cleanliness. Maybe in crowded places we may have to take on the culture of wearing masks, and this is quite prevalent in many countries in the East Asian region like Japan and China,” she told Bernama TV’s Mid-Day Update programme today.
Dr Jemilah said seasonal vaccine shots might also be required to keep Covid-19 at bay, like what was being done in Europe to contain the seasonal flu.
Touching on the National Recovery Plan (NRP) tabled by Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin, she said it laid out indicators and targets that Malaysia has to meet to bring the pandemic under control.
She noted that the NRP is a roadmap for the country to move out of the health crisis created by the Covid-19 pandemic.
“Every recovery plan is dependent on several factors. (In this case) the primary drivers are public health indicators, capacity of the health system to cope, as well as our vaccination rate, because we cannot continue to be in a persistent state of lockdown (where) the economy has to restart and accelerate (every time),” she said.
As such, Dr Jemilah said the National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme is crucial to the success of NRP, as both are needed to achieve herd immunity by vaccinating 70% to 80% of the country’s population.
On June 15, Muhyiddin announced the NRP, a strategy to move the country out of the movement control order (MCO) and manage the Covid-19 pandemic in four phases.
Dr Jemilah agreed with the view of National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme coordinating minister Khairy Jamaluddin that WHO should ask all countries to recognise all types of Covid-19 vaccines that it has listed.
"If WHO has recognised it, then it should be recognised by all the countries in the world. We cannot afford the geopolitics of vaccines; we really need to make sure people are protected," she added.
Every AEFI discussed in detail
Meanwhile, at a later function, Dr Jemilah said the Covid-19 Immunisation Task Force is viewing every reported adverse event following immunisation (AEFI) of the Covid-19 vaccination seriously.
She said every single AEFI will be discussed in detail by the task force and the Special Committee on Covid-19 Vaccine Supply Access Guarantee in their weekly meetings.
“We do not hide the truth; if there is something we need to tell the public, we will,” she said in an online news conference after the virtual launch of the Virus Hunter campaign today.
“At the moment, what I can say is we meet every week, and every single AEFI is looked at in detail. We need to be very clear that any adverse effect is monitored, and in the event of death after vaccination, within a certain period of time, a post-mortem could be required to establish the causality. Of course, every death is very sad – but we cannot attribute that to the vaccine alone.”
The campaign was jointly launched by US Ambassador to Malaysia Brian D. McFeeters.
Dr Jemilah added that Malaysia’s AEFI standards are benchmarked against global standards.
“What I can tell you is our number is not any higher than other countries, and it falls within the global average,” she added.
On another development, Dr Jemilah said it is important to ensure children’s safety against infection by providing them with a safe environment when schools reopen.
“If they cannot receive the vaccine, we have to ensure the environment they are in is safe so they don’t catch the virus. This means parents, older siblings and teachers should receive the vaccine,” she said, adding that schools must also ensure classrooms are well ventilated as a measure to prevent transmission.
Dr Jemilah added that the government is expected to come up with guidelines for the public on how to ventilate workspaces.
The Virus Hunter campaign is sponsored by the US Embassy in Kuala Lumpur and held in partnership with Penang Science Cluster to teach the youth about the global fight against the spread of disease and the science behind vaccines.
It is a virtual exhibit that helps the youth better understand the global fight against infectious diseases and how diseases spread. – Bernama, June 23, 2021
