KL leads with highest number of boosters

PETALING JAYA: Half of the adult population in the country have received their Covid-19 booster shots since the national rollout on Oct 13, 2021.

As at Jan 28, a total of 11,710,970 doses had been administered nationwide covering 50% of the adult population in Malaysia.

Kuala Lumpur is leading with the highest number of booster shots administered at 106.7% of its adult population, Putrajaya at 94.7% of its adult population and Sarawak (70.4%).

States with the lowest proportion of the adult population that have received their booster shots are Sabah with 16.5%, followed by Kelantan (19.6%) and Perlis (28%).

The country has ramped up the rollout of booster shots from Jan 4, with more than 230,000 jabs administered in a day.

The most common vaccines given out are Pfizer-BioNTech (82%), AstraZeneca (10.3%) and Sinovac (7.3%).

About 45% of those who were fully vaccinated with Sinovac received a Pfizer booster jab, while 7.2% got the Sinovac booster jab.

As for 32.3% of those who were fully vaccinated with Pfizer, the recipients received the same vaccine for their booster jab.

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Other combinations include Pfizer booster jabs for those fully vaccinated with the AstraZeneca vaccine (4.4%), AstraZeneca boosters for those fully vaccinated with Sinovac (3%), and AstraZeneca boosters for AstraZeneca vaccine recipients (5.1%).

Following a decision by the Health Ministry to shorten the interval period for continuous protection against Covid-19, all vaccine recipients can now get their booster jabs three months after their second shot.

Previously, only Sinovac recipients got their booster shots 90 days after receiving their second dose while those on Pfizer and AstraZeneca had to wait 180 days.

On Friday, the ministry said all residents in Malaysia aged 18 and above can now walk in to any vaccination centre (PPV) to receive the booster shots.

This includes general practitioner clinics, in addition to the four mega vaccination centres, namely the World Trade Centre Kuala Lumpur, Axiata Arena in Bukit Jalil, Ideal Convention Centre, Shah Alam, and Dewan Soka Gakkai, Klang, that have started allowing walk-ins from Thursday.

Those who wish to go to general practitioner clinics for their booster shots are advised to contact the PPVs first.

The ministry said that allowing walk-ins is an effort to increase the booster dose intake to ensure that as many of the population is protected against variants such as Omicron.

ProtectHealth said on Friday that those with MySejahtera appointments will be given priority at vaccination centres and jabs would be offered on a first-come, first-served basis.

“It is possible, depending on demand, that some people will be asked to return the following day if the session they attend reaches full capacity,” it said.

The list of vaccination centres is found at www.protecthealth.com.my or https://vaksincovid.protect health.com.my/find.