Covid-19 vaccination: Government to jab 75,000 daily as a start, says Khairy

PETALING JAYA: The Government is targeting to vaccinate 75,000 people a day when the national Covid-19 vaccination programme begins in March, reported health news portal CodeBlue.

Science, Technology and Innovation Minister Khairy Jamaluddin (pic) said the vaccination will be conducted across 600 sites.

He said that the 75,000 daily jabs was the first target, with the next target being 150,000 jabs daily, though this would depend on the supply of the vaccine.

“We want to try to get as much done as possible by quarter two, quarter three, quarter four. We’ve identified about 600 vaccination sites to do this. But we’re also looking at securing other sites, for instance, we’re looking at stadiums, we’re looking at big venues.

“So, I think if we consider 75,000 people per day, with the combination of 600 sites —MOH sites, as well as private clinics and private hospitals — plus these mass vaccination sites that I’m trying to coordinate, if things go as planned we can get it (all) done by December at the quickest, ” Khairy was quoted in an interview with CodeBlue.

He added that the government was mapping out vaccination sites according to population density and assumptions of demand, and that the mass vaccination centres could run 24 hours a day.

“Hopefully, in a month or so or less than that, we’ll have a decent estimate of when we can finish, assuming we have the supply, ” he said.

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Khairy said the 600 proposed vaccination sites consisted of Health Ministry hospitals, public health clinics, university hospitals, Malaysian Armed Forces hospitals and clinics, private general practitioner (GP) clinics, and private health care facilities.

He said that there would be about 7,000 staff in charge of vaccinations, but also said it would “easily” reach 10,000 staff, depending on the number of vaccination sites.

“We’re going to mobilise not just people in the health service, but also community volunteers, the Red Crescent, the St John Ambulance, we’re going to get as many people as possible to be involved in this. A lot of volunteers.

“Part of it is administering (the vaccine). Not anyone can administer, but we want to ensure that all the support services — the work from registration, to surveilling 15 minutes after you receive [a jab] to make sure there’s no adverse reaction — we want to make sure there’s enough people there, ” he said.

He added that the government would also look at roping in community pharmacists to administer shots, acknowledging that MOH does not have enough staff to run the Covid-19 vaccination programme.

“By our calculations, for the first phase which is (for) frontliners, we have enough MOH staff to roll out the first phase, then we’ll start training the rest as we go along, ” said Khairy.