SELangkah denies being source of block bookings for AstraZeneca vaccinations

PETALING JAYA: Selangor’s health platform SELangkah has refuted claims that it made block bookings in large quantities for AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccinations.

Its chief executive officer Tengku Iesta Tengku Alaudin said they were not involved in any vaccine reservations.

“We strongly deny the baseless statement. We were never contacted by CITF about this issue as claimed, ” he said in a statement Friday (May 28).

Tengku Iesta also noted that SELangkah would not hesitate to initiate legal action against anyone who spread false allegations to tarnish its reputation.

This came following the Covid-19 Immunisation Task Force (CITF) claim earlier Friday that SElangkah had acknowledged that it had made reservations for AstraZeneca vaccinations without first checking if individuals in the ImuniSEL database had agreed to it, which resulted in the change of appointments for those who had been given earlier dates at the vaccination centres.

CITF said they had received complaints from individuals who were given appointments for AstraZeneca vaccinations even though they did not make any bookings when the slots were made available on Wednesday (May 26).

It said preliminary investigations into complaints about the vaccine appointment slots show that a large number came from the same IP addresses, including the Selangor government's SElangkah app.

CITF also claimed that SElangkah has given its assurance to work with the task force and resolve these issues and ensure those involved would be given back their old appointment dates.

Khairy Jamaluddin, who is the coordinating minister for the National Covid-19 Immunisation programme had, on Thursday (May 27), announced that the next batch of AstraZeneca vaccines will no longer be offered through an opt-in but included in the mainstream vaccines.

He said the overwhelming response to the AstraZeneca vaccine showed that there was no longer any hesitation about it in the community.

He also said the government is mulling allowing Malaysians choose their preferred vaccine.