KUALA LUMPUR: All registered and unregistered senior citizens aged 60 and above who have not received an appointment date can walk in to any vaccination centre (PPV) in the Klang Valley for their Covid-19 jabs beginning tomorrow.
Covid-19 National Immunisation Programme (NIP) coordinating minister Khairy Jamaluddin said guidelines would be distributed to all PPVs to ensure that senior citizens could receive the vaccine in a comfortable and safe environment in view of the increasing number of cases in the Klang Valley.
"Our intention is to make sure they get protection as soon as possible. Senior citizens who attend by walk-in will be allowed to enter the PPV using the special lane.
"For senior citizens who have never registered either through MySejahtera or the website, registration will be done at the registration counter at each PPV.
"If necessary, especially for senior citizens who do not have the MySejahtera application, staff will obtain information on beneficiaries or guardians to contact them for a second dose vaccination reminder.
"If a senior citizen arrives at a PPV when the vaccine supply for the day has already run out, his or her name will be entered for the next day," he said in a joint virtual press conference with Health Minister Datuk Seri Dr Adham Baba today.
Khairy, however, said for senior citizens who have received an appointment, they are to visit the respective PPV according to the date and time of the appointment that has been given.
"All appointments that have been given so far are dated before Aug 1."
Khairy also said up to July 15, of the 18,583,368 people registered under the NIP, 5,806,451 were those under Phase 2 and 12,776,917 for Phase 3.
The number of registered senior citizens, he said had reached 3,025,275.
"To date, 2,680,880 senior citizens, 219,404 disabled people and 5,136,727 people with co-morbidities under Phase 2 have received at least one dose of the vaccine.
"Nationwide, 95 per cent of senior citizens who had registered, have received their vaccinations or vaccination appointments.
"As previously stated, under Phase 3, appointments will be given on a `first come first serve' basis - that is, those who have registered in advance will be given an appointment in advance if they are not in a specific group that has been vaccinated such as frontliners."
On Sinovac supply, Khairy clarified that there is no issue of Sinovac being replaced because the country had run out of supply of the said vaccine.
"All orders of 12 million doses made by the federal government with Pharmaniaga for Sinovac will be fully supplied at the end of this month, with the last batch of doses to be supplied on July 21.
"This is actually earlier than the previously agreed supply plan, which is for supplies to be made within seven months between May to November 2021.
"It was accelerated to meet our need to expedite vaccination following the daily increase in Covid-19 infections where Pharmaniaga has placed orders for imported vaccines (ready to be distributed) along with the distribution of Fill & Finish type vaccines."
On AstraZeneca, which has asked Thailand to extend the timeline for the delivery of 61 million doses of its Covid-19 vaccine by five months, Khairy said the government kept a close watch on its development and AstraZeneca to date had guaranteed that it would not affect Malaysia's supply.
On another matter, Health Minister Datuk Seri Dr Adham Baba said a total of 172 pregnant healthcare workers had contracted Covid-19.