PUTRAJAYA,Feb 24: Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin received his first dose of the Covid-19 vaccine at the Presint 11 Health Clinic here after chairing the Cabinet meeting on Wednesday (Feb 24).
The National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme began two days ahead of schedule. It was initially scheduled to roll out on Friday (Feb 26).
Apart from Muhyiddin, also scheduled to receive the vaccine today are the Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah and four other staff members from the Health Ministry.
Science, Technology and Innovation Minister Khairy Jamaluddin had said that the first batch of 312,390 Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines would be administered to 271,802 frontliners, 57.3% of whom would comprise medical personnel and the rest non-medical frontliners.
He said the first batch of vaccines was to be distributed to 16 vaccine storage centres – four in Johor, two in Penang, six in Selangor, three in Kuala Lumpur and one in Putrajaya.
Khairy also said the government would continue with its two-dose policy under the immunisation programme although a study showed that a single dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine had up to 85% efficacy against the virus.
The programme will involve the immunisation of 80% of the population under three phases, starting with frontliners from now till April.
The second phase is from April to August involving senior citizens aged 65 and above, high-risk groups as well as persons with disabilities, while the third phase from May to February 2022 are for adults aged 18 and above.
