COMMENT | Pro-active steps needed for next vaccine rollout
COMMENT | The Health Ministry and the Covid-19 Vaccine Supply Access Guarantee Special Committee (JKJAV) must be proactive and ramp up their logistical and administrative preparations during this period in order to both accelerate and smoothen the whole pre-vaccination, vaccination and post-vaccination process of the current Phase 2 and upcoming Phase 3 of the vaccination programme.
This includes ramping up awareness programmes to counter misinformation, hesitancy and concerns raised by the public.
Other steps include increasing the registration rate especially among the vulnerable groups, beefing up call centres for more systemic notification and follow-up, more comprehensive recruitment of non-medical volunteers to manage administrative and logistical issues especially during large-scale vaccinations, and proper training for volunteers on the required standard operating procedures (SOPs)...
COMMENT | The Health Ministry and the Covid-19 Vaccine Supply Access Guarantee Special Committee (JKJAV) must be proactive and ramp up their logistical and administrative preparations during this period in order to both accelerate and smoothen the whole pre-vaccination, vaccination and post-vaccination process of the current Phase 2 and upcoming Phase 3 of the vaccination programme.
This includes ramping up awareness programmes to counter misinformation, hesitancy and concerns raised by the public.
Other steps include increasing the registration rate especially among the vulnerable groups, beefing up call centres for more systemic notification and follow-up, more comprehensive recruitment of non-medical volunteers to manage administrative and logistical issues especially during large-scale vaccinations, and proper training for volunteers on the required standard operating procedures (SOPs).
All these efforts must be intensified now so that once an ample supply of vaccine arrives in June, a full and comprehensive rollout can be undertaken without any hiccups in order to accelerate the rate of vaccination in our country.
While we appreciate the response by National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme Coordinating Minister Khairy Jamaluddin on the status of the programme, we strongly believe that more efforts can be done to accelerate the process even with the currently available stock of vaccines, especially to cover all our front liners and even priority groups.
The slower these priority groups get the vaccine, the longer time they are exposed to a higher risk of contracting and spreading the disease. That is why the current rate of inoculation can be intensified without the need to pace it out until the arrival of more vaccines.
The main consideration is to inoculate and protect as fast as we can with the currently available supplies. For example, we have called for teachers, especially those in red zones like the Klang Valley, Johor and Penang, to be vaccinated first to reduce the likelihood of schools being shut down due to a high number of Covid-19 cases but to date, we have not seen or heard of a systematic programme to vaccinate the teachers.
On top of that, in preparation for the arrival of additional vaccine supplies, preparation efforts must be carried out now, especially to secure sufficient manpower to cater for an increase in the number of vaccinations per day by fourfold from 40,000 per day to 160,000 per day as targeted.
This includes medical and non-medical preparations to facilitate the whole process. More non-medical volunteers should be recruited to complement and free up medical workers from being burdened by non-medical aspects of the programme including registration, administration, call-centres, notifications, facilitating crowds at vaccination centres and many others.
These volunteers should be given the appropriate training now to ingrain the necessary SOPs into them so as to prevent any mix-up or confusion during the full rollout.
More should also be recruited to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of the current Covid-19 call centres. These call centres can then be divided into medical who handles any medically related question on the vaccine and non-medical for notifications and appointment inquiries.
With better feedback and inquiry system, and shorter “call-waiting time”, this can help with vaccine confidence and also make sure all those who get their appointments respond within the required period of time.
The government should be looking at adopting modern technology such as chatbots and Artificial Intelligence (AI) as soon as possible to respond to predicted high queries even during the Phase 2 period and not wait until Phase 3 of the programme.
All these are important to make sure people are properly notified and not their appointments, and also to address some concerns some that are having second thoughts about vaccination.
In addition, an early deployment of technology such as chatbots will allow the AI system to more time to improve its response before the mass vaccination exercises are rolled out in June and beyond.
With the Health Ministry predicting a fourth wave coming very soon, it may be even more devastating with the spread of Covid-19 variants which are more resistant to the available vaccines, namely the B117 (UK) and B1351 (South Africa) strains which have already been detected in our country.
Europe, South America, North America and India are currently suffering due to this new more severe variant Covid-19 wave. With all these considerations, it is pivotal that we must speed up the rollout and scale up the coverage of the Covid-19 vaccines.
Blame cannot be put on vaccine supplies alone, but much more can be done now to speed up the current process and also prepare a foundation and framework to ensure a fast, efficient and smooth rollout once more stocks of the vaccine arrive.
Jointly signed by:
Dzulkefly Ahmad (Kuala Selangor)
Dr Lee Boon Chye (Gopeng)
Kelvin Yii (Bandar Kuching)
Dr Mohd Hatta Ramli (Lumut)
Sim Tze Tzin (Bayan Baru)
Ong Kian Ming (Bangi)
Dr Siti Mariah Mahmud (Selangor Health exco)
Dr Norlela Ariffin (Pulau Pinang Health exco)
Veerapan Supramaniam (Negeri Sembilan Health exco)
The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.
