KUALA LUMPUR, April 5 — A total of 62,837 health care personnel across the public and private sectors have yet to receive Covid-19 vaccination, Vaccine Minister Khairy Jamaluddin said today.
Khairy, during his weekly briefing on the National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme (PICK), revealed that these medical frontliners include health care workers from government and private facilities, dentists, community pharmacists, hospice care, private ambulance, hemodialysis centres, and palliative care centres.
“Instruction is to ensure they are given priority to be vaccinated in April so that we complete Phase One,” Khairy said.
During the same press conference, Health Minister Dr Adham Baba added that as of April 4, a total of 75,944 private health care workers, including general practitioners (GPs) and dentists, among others, have received at least the first dose of the Covid-19 vaccine.
He added that of the 287,737 frontliners who have received the second dose, 18,022 of them are private health care workers.
Last Friday, the Malaysian Medical Association, in a statement, said many health care workers in the private sector have yet to be vaccinated against Covid-19. MMA pointed out that there is poor coordination within the Ministry of Health’s (MOH) appointment system as the names of many private doctors, nurses, and clinical assistants did not appear on state health departments’ vaccine recipient list.
Meanwhile, the Malaysian Private Dental Practitioners’ Association (MPDPA), in a statement today said that the majority of private dentists, especially in big cities, have yet to receive their Covid-19 shots.
Both Khairy and Dr Adham assured the medical fraternity that each state health director has been instructed to ensure that all private medical practitioners get at least the first dose of the Covid-19 vaccine by the end of April.
As of April 4, a total of 514,036 first doses and 287,737 second doses of the coronavirus vaccine respectively have been administered.
Correction at 6.40pm: CodeBlue erroneously reported that 75,944 private GPs and dentists have received at least the first dose of the Covid-19 vaccine, and that 18,022 who received the second dose are GPs and dentists. Dr Adham Baba was referring to private health care workers in general for those figures. The article has been corrected.
