The government of Malaysia has announced plans to boost the country’s vaccination rate to 400,000 a day by August in order to achieve 80 per cent herd immunity by September 2021.
Covid-19 National Immunisation Programme (NIP) coordinating minister Khairy Jamaluddin said the government is targeting a maximum vaccination capacity of 300,000 per day in July with a view to increase it to 400k in August.
Thus far the highest vaccination rate was recorded on June 17th with a total of 221,706 doses administered (177,876 first doses and 43,830 second doses).
The Minister heading the NIP Khairy Jamaluddin said the government has to date signed agreements to procure 73.1 million doses of vaccine that would cover 119.65 per cent of the population.
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This, he said does not include the 6.4 million doses (to cover 10 per cent of the population) of Gamaleya’s Sputnik V, which is pending National Pharmaceutical Regulatory Agency (NPRA) approval.
“We have procured 6.4 million doses (AstraZeneca, Janssen and Novavax) via Covax (WHO). Of the 1.39 million doses of AstraZeneca, 828,000 have been sent.
“While, 44.8 million doses of Pfizer-Biotech vaccine (covering 70 per cent population), 6.4 million doses of AZ (10 per cent), 12 million doses of Sinovac (18.75 per cent) and 3.5 million doses of CanSino (10.9 per cent) have been procured to date.”
The government is also in talks with other countries for mutual recognition of Malaysia’s vaccination certificate, with a particalur focus with Saudi Arabia who are looking to enrol a passport system for Umrah and Hajj pilgrimages in the future.
