KUALA LUMPUR: The Covid-19 Immunisation Task Force (CITF) will announce its decision on walk-ins for Covid-19 booster shots after a meeting this evening.
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Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin said an announcement would be made following the CITF-B discussion.
“Perhaps when we allow walk-in for boosters, we may allow those who are unvaccinated to also walk in,” he said during a Malaysian Healthcare Tourism Council briefing on marketing Malaysia as the destination for Hepatitis C treatment, here today.
Khairy also said those in charge of the vaccination centres had been told not to turn away those who were qualified for boosters if they were few days short of their three and six months immunity threshold for sinovac and Pfizer when their protection was slated to wane.
On Nov 11, Federation of Malaysian Consumers Associations president Datuk Dr Marimuthu Nadason said boosters should be offered as a walk-in option alongside the MySejahtera appointment streams for frontliners, those with comorbidities and individuals above 40 years old.
He said too many people had died in Malaysia due to a dearth in vaccines and slow distribution of jabs, and a similar situation could happen due to the issues with booster shots.
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This, he said, was especially crucial for 9.3 million Sinovac recipients, as studies indicated the immunity levels for those who received the vaccine waned significantly after three months.
“There are needs to be transparent on who is getting the shots, their ages and so on, as there have been anecdotal reports that those in their 30s who appear healthy are getting booster shots.”
He also urged the Health Ministry to be transparent on no-shows, citing reports that 40 per cent of those who received appointments for booster shots under MySejahtera did not turn up.
“Is there a stand-by list that people don’t know about and how do ordinary people get on it?” he asked, referring to claims of non-elected politicians and celebrities supposedly with comorbidities getting on the list in Perak and Selangor earlier this year.
Both states were experiencing sluggish vaccine distribution and limited supplies of doses meant for the elderly and those with comorbidities.-NST