Khairy: Next few months 'crucial, busiest' part of Covid-19 immunisation plan

PETALING JAYA: The next few months will be the most "crucial and busiest" part of the national Covid-19 immunisation plan, as Malaysia ramps up its vaccination drive across the country, says Khairy Jamaluddin.

The National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme coordinating minister said that to meet this challenge in the upcoming months, the government had increased vaccination capacity by opening up more vaccination centres (PPVs) of all types and by deploying more healthcare workers and other volunteers.

According to him, currently, Malaysia has a total 1,400 PPVs operating across the country.

"While many focus on the so-called mega PPVs, we have PPVs in all shapes and sizes.

"We have mini pop-up PPVs in the Orang Asli villages.

"We also have PPVs at places of worship, schools, universities, community halls, places of work, plantation estates and even in restaurants.

"We also have drive-through PPVs and, of course, mobile units that we deploy to the interior and for house calls," he said.

Khairy added that some in the rural areas had no access to the MySejahtera app so "we simply record their details during the vaccination and upload it into the system subsequently."

The Rembau MP added that more than 1,500 GP clinics and 120 private hospitals will also be operating as PPVs.

The government will also be expanding its vaccination programme for essential economic sectors that are operating during Phase 1 of the National Recovery Plan.

"These workers have to physically report for duty and are therefore at risk from Covid-19 transmissions.

"We will be focusing on the manufacturing, transport, construction and plantation sectors first, with a target of vaccinating at least 300,000 workers over the next few weeks," Khairy said.

Meanwhile, on the prevalence of the Delta variant in Malaysia, he said the government will continue to draw on real world data on vaccine effectiveness against this and possibly other emerging variants.

"Like many other countries, we are now studying whether a third booster dose might be necessary.

"We need to accept that Covid-19 is most probably endemic, possibly requiring regular vaccination much like the flu jab in certain countries," he said.

"The next few months are everything, we need to, more than ever, come together and win together. Let's do this," Khairy said.