THERE’S plenty of finger-pointing and blame game in action when it comes to the speed of the administration of COVID-19 vaccines in Malaysia but yet, little is done to procure more doses of vaccine and expand the network of immunisation centres particularly in rural areas.
As of June 27, the country recorded a total of 16, 515,196 registrations for inoculation under the National COVID-19 Immunisation Programme (NIP), comprising 67.0% of the country’s 24.3 million population aged 18 years and above.
Despite the high number of registrations, however, only 7.4 million COVID-19 vaccine doses had been administered since the beginning of the vaccine roll-out in March. Out of this number, 5.31 million people (16.3%) having received their first dose.
This has prompted numerous complaints about the slow vaccine rollout compared to other countries which NIP coordinating minister Khairy Jamaluddin has blamed on the global vaccine inequity and vaccine hoarding by wealthy nations.
But rather than just relying on the existing vaccine sources, why is the Government not broadening its COVID-19 vaccine portfolio to include other vaccines as well?
Several vaccines have already received approval for use globally, but yet, the Health Ministry’s National Pharmaceutical Regulatory Agency (NPRA) has doggedly stuck to only three for the Malaysian market – Pfizer-BioNTech, AstraZeneca and Sinovac.
Gamaleya’s Sputnik V and CanSino Biologics’ Convidecia vaccines have yet to receive NPRA’s approval, although according to news reports, Malaysia has reportedly placed orders for the vaccines. Why is this the case?
But vaccine supply shortage is only one of the many problems the country has to contend with, the other being the challenge of reaching the people in rural and remote areas, including Orang Asli communities.
To overcome this issue, the Government has recently launched mobile vaccination units in nine states in Malaysia to villages and rural areas to speed up the process of administering COVID-19 vaccines for villagers, indigenous people, the elderly, the disabled and the homeless.
To overcome this issue, the Government has recently launched mobile vaccination units in nine states in Malaysia to villages and rural areas to speed up the process of administering COVID-19 vaccines for villagers, indigenous people, the elderly, the disabled and the homeless.
Currently, according data from the COVID-19 Vaccine Supply Access Guarantee Special Committee (JKJAV), there are 521 vaccination centres available nationwide.
With the Government aiming to achieve its maximum vaccination capacity of 300,000 daily doses in July and 400,000 daily doses in August, the question here is whether the 521 PPVs (vaccination centres) would be enough to get the job done.
While it is good that the Government is going all out in its efforts to make sure that no one is left behind in the NIP, there is still so much to be done, especially in terms of our vaccine supply and the number of vaccination centres before the country has any hopes of achieving 80% herd immunity by September. – July 2, 2021
