Several PPVs ran out of vaccines due to high vaccination rate - KJ
Several Covid-19 vaccine centres in the country ran out of supply recently due to their high utilisation rate, according to Khairy Jamaluddin.
The minister in charge of the National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme (NIP) said this morning that the issue, however, was not widespread and involved only several vaccine centres, or better known as PPVs.
Several Covid-19 vaccine centres in the country ran out of supply recently due to their high utilisation rate, according to Khairy Jamaluddin.
The minister in charge of the National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme (NIP) said the issue, however, was not widespread and involved only several vaccine centres, better known by their Malay acronym, PPV.
"We are now increasing the rate of vaccination. Due to this, several PPVs recently had run out of stock.
"However, such incidents only happened at several PPVs, not many. And this was because they ran out of vaccines while new stocks were not yet able to reach them.
"But this situation only lasted for one or two days. We try to avoid this by having a more thorough plan [...] I think that by July when we receive more supply, this will not happen again," Khairy told the media during a press conference at the Malaysia International Trade and Exhibition Centre (Mitec) in the capital today.
He was there to oversee a mass vaccination exercise for pregnant mothers.
Malaysiakini recently received information that some PPVs in several states had to turn away vaccine recipients who had appointments as they had run out of vaccine supply.
Khairy, who is the science, technology and innovation minister, said vaccine recipients who had to be turned away have had their appointments rescheduled.
He said the high utilisation rate also left Malaysia with a low buffer in vaccine supply.
From the eight million doses that the country has received so far, Khairy said they have utilised some seven million, leaving authorities with only about one million doses in their hands now.
S'gor needs to increase vaccination rate
During his press conference, Khairy also said that Selangor has to increase its vaccination rate.
The minister said this when asked why Selangor - which is densely populated - has a low vaccination rate.
According to Khairy, it had nothing to do with vaccine supply but rather issues with capacity.
“We have increased (vaccine) distribution to Selangor in June and July. I think they are getting more than 20 percent of the total vaccine supply.
“Selangor has issues with capacity. They were vaccinating at a rate of about 20,000 a day. I had to visit Selangor, to work with the state government to increase the capacity.
“Now they’re doing almost 50,000 doses a day. But they need to do more than 100,000 a day,” he said.
Third booster shot
Meanwhile, the special committee that oversees vaccine procurement was now looking at procuring more supply for next year.
Khairy said they are studying if there is the need to administer a third vaccine shot as a booster.
“We want better data on how long the protection lasts. And if it wanes, at what point should we give booster shots?
“Secondly, we are also looking into the booster shot because of the Delta variant. In the UK, 90 percent of the new infection cases were caused by the Delta variant.
“Two days ago, Israel, which was one of the fastest to vaccinate its people, also reinstated a masking order for indoors because of the variant,” said Khairy.
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