SERDANG: The government says 500,000 frontliners are set to receive the first dose of the Covid-19 vaccine in the first quarter of this year.
Announcing this, Health Minister Datuk Seri Dr Adham Baba said the same group is scheduled to receive the second dose, to be administered 21 days after the first dose, according to the World Health Organisation's (WHO) guidelines.
"Those who will receive the first dose of the vaccines (frontliners), their names have been recorded.
"They have been informed and notified of the matter, while for the second category, the vaccination programme will be announced by Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin, soon," he said after visiting the Covid-19 Quarantine and Low-Risk Treatment Centre (PKRC) at the Malaysia Agro Exposition Park (MAEPS) here today.
Science, Technology and Innovation Minister Khairy Jamaluddin on Thursday reported that Malaysia will receive its first one million doses of vaccines from Pfizer in the first quarter of this year.
Other vaccine supplies such as the Astrazeneca, Sinovac, Sputnik V and CanSino are pending approval from the National Pharmaceutical Regulatory Agency (NPRA) and the respective final agreement details are expected to arrive in the second quarter totalling 1.7 million, third quarter with 5.8 million and 4.3 million in the fourth quarter of this year.
The first (vaccine) doses by the United Kingdom and in collaboration with a German pharmaceutical company totalling one million will be given to frontliners nationwide, followed by the vulnerable community.
Commenting on the logistics issues faced by Pfizer which said there would be a shortage of supplies, Dr Adham said Malaysia had signed a detailed agreement over the matter.
"With the Pfizer BioNTech vaccines, we have made the agreement on the supply, and that company has to comply to the supply as scheduled.
"As such, there is no need to worry about shortage or delay in the supply issue," he said.
On a separate matter, he said the PKRC 2.0 will be improved and is expected to accommodate up to 10,000 patients.
Dr Adham said the improvement of the PKRC 2.0 was the opening of a new hall scheduled for Monday.
He said the D1 hall could accommodate 1,400 patients, both female and male, or families who tested positive for Covid-19 category one and two.
"We are opening this new hall to accommodate families who are tested positive for Covid-19 for category one or two. This way, we can reduce the mental and stress problems among the patients if they were to be separated from their family members," he said.
Dr Adham said the facility aspects in the PKRC 2.0 covers the comfortability aspect and could support patients' recovery rate.
Although many will be placed in one hall, he urged the patients to take care of one another and ensure the PKRC 2.0 would remain comfortable and safe for all.
"We will add more staff from the ministry to this new facility," he said.
