KUALA LUMPUR: Close to 10,000 people are scheduled to be inoculated on the first day of Phase 2 of the National Immunisation Programme (NIP), which started today.
Science, Technology and Innovation Minister Khairy Jamaluddin said the vaccine recipients made up of senior citizens, those with comorbidities and the disabled group, will receive the first dose of the vaccination.
“A total 9,916 people were scheduled to receive their first vaccine doses today. In Perlis, the biggest group is 924 people to be immunised at Dewan 2020,” he said
“Phase 2 of NIP will start in stages at 30 vaccination centres (PPV) opened in Kedah; Melaka; Negri Sembilan; Pahang; Penang; Perlis; Terengganu; Sabah; Sarawak and Labuan,” he said today.
Khairy, who is also the NIP coordinating minister, said Phase 1 will run concurrently which will see 258,783 frontliners being administered the second vaccine dose, such as in Selangor.
There are currently 8,992,832 individuals who have registered for the vaccine while those who have received only one vaccine dose stands at 701,812 and 443,029 have been fully inoculated.
On the latest update on the shipment of the Covid-19 vaccines, Khairy said there will be three more shipments of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine this week.
“As for April, we will be receiving three more shipments of Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine this week. On April 21, there will be 128,700 doses; there will be 36,270 doses on April 22 and April 23 with 12,870 doses.
“This amounts to 177,840 vaccine doses. As mentioned last week, the total supply we will be receiving in April is 712,530 doses,” he said.
In May, Khairy said Malaysia is expected to receive 1,038,960 doses of Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine and 500,000 doses of Sinovac vaccine-finished product from China.
“The supply will be sent in batches on a weekly basis. On top of that, we will also have the Sinovac supply from Pharmaniaga ready in bulk form of 1,800 litres that can produce up to 2.6mil doses.
“However, this supply from Pharmaniaga is still pending approval from the Health Ministry’s National Pharmaceutical Regulatory Agency (NPRA) for product validation,” he said.-NST