SEGAMAT: The Health Ministry will look into the actual reason as to why so many have yet to register for the Covid-19 inoculation.
Its minister Datuk Seri Dr Adham Baba said only 7.6 million from 26.7 million targeted tvaccine recipients have registered so far through the MySejahtera application, equivalent to about 30 per cent of the population.
"The ministry sees this as a low figure, so we want to find out if the campaign is inefficient or people are afraid of taking it, or they lack information on how it works.
"The 7.6 million figure is not satisfactory and it is still low. Our target under the National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme (NIP) is 70 per cent to 80 per cent," he said.
Dr Adham was speaking after officiating the Segamat district level 'Malaysia Prihatin Vaksinasi Covid-19 Lindungi Diri, Lindungi Semua' programme at Dewan Muafakat Taman Yayasan here today.
Present was Segamat member of parliament Datuk Seri Dr Santhara Kumar and Johor Health Department director Datuk Dr Aman Rabu.
Dr Adham said the reason behind the less than encouraging registration figure for inoculation could be that people are taking a wait and see approach.
The Minister was concerned that the lower inoculation registration would impact the government's rollout plan of the vaccines at the last minute.
He said the ministry will use agents from each district as a mediator to the community to channel correct information on the vaccination process.
Dr Adham also said that manual registration counters at public health clinics and private health institutions have already been set up to ease the registration process for individuals who are not tech-savvy.
"Since vaccinations began, infection amongst Health Ministry (personnel) has also been on the decline.
"The data translates to success (of the inoculation programme)," he added.
As of last month, 6,087 Health Ministry frontliners were infected with Covid-19.
The figure includes 2,276 nurses, 816 medical officers, 537 health care assistant, 534 assistant medical officer, 340 graduate medical officer, 133 medical specialists, and 1,451 other personnel.
He stressed that the success involving inoculation is a benchmark for the country in lowering the infection rate, once the second phase of vaccination kicks-off on April 19.