KUALA LUMPUR: The AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine rollout, which was removed from the National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme (NIP), will be continued, with more doses to arrive this year.
Science, Technology and Innovation Minister Khairy Jamaluddin said this was based on the success of its voluntary inoculation drive with some 268,000 people in Kuala Lumpur and Selangor having booked for the vaccination slots.
“We will continue with the rollout and expand to other parts of the country, based on the success. There is a steady supply of AstraZeneca vaccine.
“We will take into account the earlier question on vaccine equity to ensure that it is also made available to those who do not have access to the website (via http://vaksincovid.gov.my) or MySejahtera app,” he said in a Press conference via Zoom today.
He said 1.1 million more doses of AstraZeneca were expected to arrive this month through the Covid-19 Vaccine Global Access (Covax) facility, 610,000 directly from the producer in June, 410,00 in July and 1.2 million in August and September.
Khairy, who is also the National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme Coordinating Minister, said some 8,000 people had made cancellations of their NIP registration, when the AstraZeneca vaccine arrived and its usage in Malaysia was announced recently.
“And the number of people cancelling their registration with the NIP kept rising. After further discussion, the Covid-19 Vaccine Supplies Access Guarantee Special Committee (JKAV) has decided that the AstraZeneca vaccine was removed from the mainstream programme.
“Following this, 80 per cent who had made the cancellation had re-registered with the NIP.”
He said the trend had indicated vaccine hesitancy, and an in-depth review on the matter would be done and its findings would be released to the public.
“While we do our best to communicate (to the public on Covid-19 AstraZeneca vaccine), we don’t want to interrupt the National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme as the utilisation of the Pfizer and Sinovac (vaccines) had proceeded smoothly.
“(However), we noticed that people have cancelled their registration and did not turn up for vaccination; that was something that concerns us greatly.
“There comes a stage where science, however effectively communicated to the public, cannot keep pace with conspiracy theories,” he said, adding that this has prompted the government to remove AstraZeneca from the mainstream vaccination programme to ensure it ran smoothly.-NST