156 PPVs to open for daily school students, teenagers starting Sept 23

UPDATED 5.05PM | The Health Ministry will open 156 vaccination centres in 11 states and two Federal Territories starting this Thursday to carry out Covid-19 immunisation for daily school students.

According to a statement from the ministry, the initiative would see schools given a schedule, detailing which PPV and the time period allocated for their students to get inoculated.

Deputy Health Minister Dr Noor Azmi Ghazali said the initiative, saying that it is aimed at making it easier for the group to get vaccinated and quicken the process to immunise the country's population.

"This initiative is taken after considering that the National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme for the adult population has almost reached its target, and the number of vaccine recipients at public PPVs have gone down. All PPVs under the main programme are expected to stop operating this Oct 15.

"Thus, the Covid-19 Immunisation Task Force has identified 156 public PPVs and integrated PPVs nationwide to increase the capacity of vaccination for teenagers during this transition period," he said in a statement.

For the record, the list of 156 PPVs covers all states except Terengganu and the Federal Territory of Putrajaya. A MOH spokesperson said that students there would be inoculated at their respective schools.

The initiative is also not applicable to boarding school students and students who are scheduled to get their inoculation at their respective schools.

It was not clear whether private and international schools would be involved in this initiative. Malaysiakini has requested clarification on this from the MOH.

According to Noor Azmi, the scheduled walk-in would be carried out according to schools located nearest to an identified PPV, where a certain period would be set for each school.

The schedules for the walk-in period would be issued by the respective schools to students and their parents.

For teenagers who are not attending any school, Noor Azmi said they are allowed to walk in at any of the 156 PPVs, whichever is close to their home.

"However, if the PPV has run out of vaccine quota for the day, the teenagers would be given an appointment at the same location for the next day, or at any private clinic nearby."

Teenagers aged under 18 but are studying at tertiary learning institutions are also allowed to do walk-ins at any of the PPVs, where they need to show their student identification card and be accompanied by a parent or guardian who would have to sign their consent form.

Only one parent or guardian would be allowed to accompany a teenager into a PPV so as to avoid congestion.

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