PETALING JAYA: The country’s vaccination programme is already being ramped up and can be completed before the end of the year, says coordinating minister Khairy Jamaluddin.
He was responding to former prime minister Najib Razak’s repeated claims that it will take years to reach herd immunity at the current rate of immunisation.
In a virtual press conference today, the science, technology and innovation minister said that while the figure of 6.1 years cited by the former prime minister on Facebook today was mathematically true, it did not factor in the imminent increase in vaccination rates nationwide.
“Najib keeps on saying that at the rate you are doing, it will take six years. Of course if you take the rate we are doing now, that’s how long it will take, but as I’ve said again and again that the rate will increase.”
“It increases in June, it increases in July, it increases in August, and with the rate we are projecting, I am confident that we can finish this year.”
He said Najib had “conveniently ignored” similar statements he had made about the vaccination rates steadily increasing month-to-month.
Khairy said that yesterday alone, 76,000 people had been vaccinated, which was well above the averaged of 30,000 to 40,000 inoculations a little earlier.
On the announcement made by the Selangor state government that employers could apply to receive vaccines for their staff, he said that if the unnamed 2.5 millions jabs were from Sinovac, the state government would have to wait its turn as the federal government will take precedence.
“All states can start their own rollouts … and I can tell you categorically, if Selangor is referring to the Sinovac vaccine, then the national programme is prioritised. I don’t know when Selangor will receive the vaccines it claims to have bought.”
He said he had already instructed Pharmaniaga, which has been tasked with both importing the finished product and filling-and-finishing a portion of the government’s 12 million doses, to deliver the vaccines to the federal government first.
“Any further orders from the states for the finished product from the Sinovac factory in Beijing, can only be delivered after the federal government’s order is fulfilled in its entirety.”
He said he had spoken to Sarawak deputy chief minister and state disaster management chairman Douglas Uggah Embas, and assured him that additional Sinovac orders for the state were not needed as the federal government would deliver to Sarawak, and all states, as soon as supplies come in.
In an update on procurement, he said a local firm had expressed interest in registering the Moderna vaccine, and that the Russian-made Sputnik V vaccine was still under consideration by the National Pharmaceutical Regulatory Agency.-FMT