By Alang Bendahara
SHAH ALAM, Feb 25 — Selangor will still continue its effort to acquire its own supply of Covid-19 vaccine despite receiving the first batch of the Pfizer-BioNTech doses from the Federal government today.
Though the state government is grateful to have received the vaccines, Selangor Menteri Besar Dato’ Seri Amirudin Shari said his administration would still pursue purchasing more doses to ensure the people in the state are vaccinated.
“This is to complement the Federal government’s effort by providing enough doses for the people of Selangor, especially those who are at high-risk and the workers in sectors that are the heart of the state’s economy.
“May Allah bless our noble cause and may Selangor be free from the Covid-19 pandemic and other deadly diseases,” said Amirudin in a statement today.
Earlier, Amirudin and 41 others had received their first dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine at the Shah Alam Hospital, here, and are scheduled to be vaccinated with the second dose on March 18.
On February 22, Amirudin announced that the Selangor government is expected to receive between two to five million doses of Covid-19 vaccine by May or June.
He said the vaccine is crucial to assist in speeding up the process of the National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme.
Previously, Amirudin had announced that the state administration will purchase Covid-19 vaccines to curb the spread of the pandemic aside from helping to ease the Federal government’s burden.
Selangor had received 78,000 doses of the Covid-19 vaccine in the first phase of the immunisation programme where a total of 66,690 frontliners would be the first batch to get the vaccines.
The first batch of Covid-19 vaccines arrived in Malaysian on February 21. A total of 312,390 doses of Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine were flown from a Belgian factory.
