By Mustakim Ramli
SHAH ALAM, Aug 26 — The decision by the Selangor government to lend some 500,000 doses of the Covid-19 vaccine to other states would help in expediting the country in reaching herd immunity.
Kota Anggerik state assembly Najwan Halimi said the vaccination exercise is one of the efforts to curb the spread of the infection and both the government and the people have a role to play.
“We hope the move by the state administration would be able to help the Federal government in increasing the country’s vaccination rate.
“At the same time, the public has to be cooperative as well. We cannot leave this solely to the government, and there should be increased awareness among the public so that more people would go get their vaccines,” he said when met here today.
Meanwhile, Bukit Gasing state assemblyman R Rajiv had asked the state government to reconsider lending the vaccines as many people in Selangor have not been vaccinated yet.
“We purchased (the vaccines) with our own allocation, we should prioritise our people. Not that we don’t want to help other states, but the need for the vaccines is still there,” he said.
On August 19, the state government had announced that it would loan 500,000 vaccine doses, which were procured for the Selangor Vaccination Programme (Selvax), to the Covid-19 Immunisation Task Force (CITF) to help other states facing low vaccination rates.
Menteri Besar Dato’ Seri Amirudin Shari said Kedah, Penang and Sabah are among the states expected to receive the vaccine supplies. It will also be sold to private companies in the said states.
Under the state’s Selvax Community initiative, 500,000 doses of the Covid-19 vaccine were procured to help speed up the vaccination process among the elderly, low-income groups, people with disabilities (OKU), and Peduli Rakyat initiative recipients.
As for the Selvax Industry, some two million doses were allocated for one million workers in the state.
