Covid-19: Economic frontliners, those registered on MySejahtera may get vaccine as early as April or May

PETALING JAYA: Economic frontliners and those who have registered for the Covid-19 vaccine on MySejahtera may be able to be vaccinated as early as April or May, says Khairy Jamaluddin.

The Science, Technology and Innovation Minister told a medical news portal that they have decided to go ahead with the economic frontliners as well as people in phase three instead of waiting for people under phase two to register.

"If you registered early for phase three, don't be surprised if you get your appointment in the next month or so," he told the medical portal.

The coordinating minister of the National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme said it might be better to move phase three up if registration under phase two was slow.

"There's no point waiting for people as long as we get a constant stream of vaccines coming in. I'm hoping to negotiate with Pfizer to bring some forward into the second quarter. Then, we can just vaccinate whoever is registered already," said Khairy.

Malaysia's Covid-19 vaccination programme started on Feb 24 where frontliners were the first to be vaccinated.

The second phase is expected to begin from April to August involving high-risk groups and those aged 60 and above, while the rest of the Malaysian population aged 18 years and above would be vaccinated in the third phase, which is from May 2021 to February 2022.

As of March 28, a total of 7,235,436 individuals have registered for the vaccine. To-date, a total of 451,655 individuals have also been given their first vaccine dose while 129,110 have taken their second dose.