By Mei Kuan
As announced by the Prime Minister during his televised address on February 4, the national COVID-19 immunisation programme will begin its rollout at the end of this month where 80% of the nation’s population or 26.5 million individuals are targeted to receive the vaccine free-of-charge.
According to Khairy Jamaluddin, Minister of Science, Technology & Innovation cum Coordinating Minister for COVID-19 Immunisation, Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin will be the first person to receive the Pfizer vaccine in order to give confidence to the public.
Meanwhile, the first phase of the national programme involves 500,000 frontliners and is scheduled to begin in February and end by April.
“To date, frontliners include those in the healthcare sector and safety sector like the police and army, among others,” Khairy explained during a virtual discussion programme hosted by Bernama TV on the night of Thursday, February 11.
The second phase comprises high risk groups like the elderly, vulnerable and differently abled. A total of 9.4 million individuals are expected to receive the vaccine under the second phase set to begin from April to August.
The third phase involves adults of age 18 and above, to begin May till February 2022.
“The registration to obtain vaccines for those categorised as adults not at high risks is expected to open in March. Registration for members of the public can be done via 5 methods in the pipeline. The highly recommended and effective way is via the MySejahtera app where there will be a new function to set up appointments. For those not using the app, there will be a dedicated website to be launched by the Prime Minister next week. A hotline connecting to a call centre will be made available. It can also be done face-to-face manually at hospitals or health clinics. The fifth way is via outreach by the Ministry of Health and other agencies especially in rural areas and villages,” he added.
=============================
Get your local news fast. Download the Ipoh Echo App on your mobile. Available on both Google Playstore and Apple Appstore.
