PUTRAJAYA: More than 12 million Covid-19 vaccine doses were administered in the country in July, says Khairy Jamaluddin.
The National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme coordinating minister said the country’s daily vaccination rate was now among the world’s fastest, citing a Reuters report.
He said the report stated that among countries with a population of more than one million, Malaysia was vaccinating faster than any other country.
“In the past seven days, Malaysia has administered a daily average of 1,446 doses per 100,000 people.
“So I would like to congratulate all those who are involved in the national vaccination programme for putting Malaysia on top of the world in terms of daily vaccination rate,” he told the weekly Covid-19 Immunisation Task Force press briefing yesterday.
He said July saw an average of 398,843 doses administered daily, an increase of 136% from June.
“The daily vaccination record was made on July 29 with 556,404 jabs given in a single day,” he said.
As of Sunday, a total of 14.2 million people – or 43.6% of the country’s population – had received at least one Covid-19 vaccine dose.
Nearly seven million people, or 21.3% of the population, have been fully vaccinated.
As for senior citizens, 3.07 million (95%) have received their first jabs while 2.25 million (71%) have completed their dosage.
With the programme expected to be ramped up further this month, Khairy said the Special Committee On Covid-19 Vaccine Supply (JKJAV) was looking to procure more Sinovac vaccine.
“Pharmaniaga, which distributes Sinovac’s Coronavac vaccine, has completed its delivery of 14,400,000 doses to the government.
“JKJAV will meet this week to decide on getting additional procurement of the Coronavac vaccine in view of the higher vaccination rate in August,” he added.
Khairy also said Pfizer-BioNTech was scheduled to deliver 1.8 million vaccine doses to Malaysia between yesterday and Aug 8.
To date, the country has received 11.3 million doses from Pfizer.
A consignment of 415,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine, a contribution from the UK government, is scheduled to arrive today.
Khairy also said the JKJAV meeting this Friday would discuss, among others, vaccination for those below the age of 18, adding: “Once the clinical guidelines are in place, we will be able to vaccinate those who qualify.”
The government recently decided to put on hold vaccination for those aged between 12 and 17 following reports in the US that a small number of teenagers had suffered from myocarditis (heart inflammation) after getting vaccinated.
