PUTRAJAYA, May 10 — A total of 2,800 vaccination appointments initially set on May 15 and 16 at the AstraZeneca Vaccination Centre at the Kuala Lumpur World Trade Centre (WTC) has been rescheduled to between May 17 and 23.
Coordinating Minister for the National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme Khairy Jamaluddin said the appointments were rescheduled to ensure physical distancing among the recipients following the recent spike of Covid cases in the country.
“Almost 19,000 vaccination appointments were initially set for the two days (May 15-16) in line with the centre’s full capacity.
“The number, however, will be reduced to 8,100 per day or 16,200 for the two days. The full capacity (of the vaccination centre) at the WTC is about 9,000 per day,” he told a press conference on the development of the immunisation programme here today.
He said the AstraZeneca vaccine recipients would be notified of the new appointment dates via SMS and MySejahtera app from tomorrow (May 11).
To ensure physical distancing, Khairy said the Covid-19 Immunisation Task Force had increased the number of halls to be used for the AstraZeneca vaccination centre at the WTC.
“Starting Wednesday, the Tun Hussein Onn and Tun Ismail halls will no longer be used. Instead, three larger halls will be opened for the purpose, namely the Merdeka, Tun Razak 3 and Tun Razak 4 halls.
“In a bid to achieve herd immunity and to vaccinate all Malaysians as soon as possible, we try to make optimal use of the capacity of every vaccination centre (PPV),” he said.
For those on the waiting list to receive the AstraZeneca vaccine, Khairy said they need only to come to the PPV after being contacted by the staff as no walk-in is allowed.
He said there were approximately 60,000 people who had opted to be on the waiting list due to the shortage of slots.
“Each day, one waiting list will be issued to the PPV and those on the list will be notified via MySejahtera app that they have been included in the appointment list for that day.
“If there were empty slots, they will be called to come for vaccination. If not called, then don’t come.
“The staff at the PPV will make the call in stages according to the number of available vaccines based on the absence of the scheduled recipients,” he said.
Khairy said, if called, the recipients could just show the notification on MySejahtera as proof if they were stopped by the law enforcers at any roadblock.
If they could not come even after confirming their attendance, the PPV will give the vaccine to those at the PPV to avoid waste, he said.
Those who could not come for vaccination even after being called under the waiting list were advised not to panic as their names will still be in the national immunisation programme, Khairy added.
Meanwhile, Khairy also refuted the allegation that the vaccination rate in Malaysia was low and stressed that the utilisation rate of the Covid-19 vaccine in the country had reached 75 per cent.
“This means that in every four vaccines that we have, three have been used,” he said.
The minister said, right now, the government could not afford to increase the utilisation rate of the vaccine to 80 per cent as there was a need for storage of the second doses of the vaccine before the new supply arrived as scheduled.
Malaysia is expected to receive another 259,740 doses of the Pfizer vaccine between May 19 and 21, bringing the total to 2.49 million doses.
“For AstraZeneca, the delivery of the second batch of the vaccine is slated on May 20 and the third batch on June 1. Each delivery will bring in 615,120 doses of the vaccine,” he said.
Khairy said the number of AstraZeneca vaccine dispensed so far stood at 19,718 and all of them were the first dose.
As of today, he said 9.983 million people have registered for Covid-19 vaccination in the country, and of the total, 1.105 million had received the first dose, while 681,426 people had completed the vaccination and received both doses.
Khairy also refuted the viral WhatsApp message claiming that if the address registered in the MySejahtera app did not have the recipient’s postcode and state, the registration too will be deemed incomplete.
Instead, he said those who have registered need not worry as all information has been completely stored in the MySejahtera system.
“The viral message is actually about the new feature for us to keep the additional information, namely the postcode and the state. This is being introduced because some people had registered with addresses located using Google Maps, which may be wrong.
“That’s why we ask for verification in terms of the postcode and state, but the earlier registration is also accepted as correct,” he said.
— Bernama
