KUALA LUMPUR, April 2 — Registration for Covid-19 vaccination continues to move at a slow pace, increasing only by 2.9 per cent over the past week ahead of Phase Two of the inoculation programme.
According to data released by the Special Committee on Ensuring Access to Covid-19 Vaccine Supply (JKJAV), only 31.4 per cent of the Malaysian population aged 18 and above have registered to get vaccinated as of April 1, compared to 28.5 per cent by March 25.
So far, a total of 7,625,478 Malaysians have registered on the federal MySejahtera application as of yesterday to get the coronavirus shot.
Although that shows an increase of 701,141 registrations from 6,924,337 registered by March 25, it only comprises less than three per cent of growth in total.
From March 25 until April 1, Putrajaya (5.3 per cent), Melaka (3.7 per cent), and Negeri Sembilan (3.7 per cent) were placed at the top three in the list with the highest growth in vaccine registration, whereas Sabah (1.3 per cent), Pahang (2.3 per cent) and Kelantan (2.4 per cent) were at the bottom in the list.
The top three states and territories with the highest proportion of the population signing up for Covid-19 vaccination, as of yesterday, were the administrative centre of Putrajaya (86.5 per cent), Selangor (43.1 per cent), and Kuala Lumpur (42.53 per cent).
Terengganu (25 per cent), Kelantan (18.7 per cent), and Sabah (11.9 per cent) have recorded the lowest proportion of the population signing up for Covid-19 shots as of April 1.
The government predominantly relies on its mobile app, MySejahtera, for Covid-19 vaccine registration.
In terms of absolute numbers of MySejahtera vaccine registrations, Selangor recorded the biggest increase with 159,751 registrations between March 25 and April 1, while Labuan reported the smallest with 1,845 registrations in that period.
As of yesterday, Malaysia has administered a total of 740,226 doses (both first and second dose) of the Covid-19 vaccine, including 498,468 first doses and 241,758 second doses.
This means that from an estimated 24,284,961 adults aged above 18 in Malaysia, about one per cent have received complete Covid-19 inoculation.
Health Minister Dr Adham Baba reportedly said yesterday that Phase Two of the National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme would be brought forward to April 17 from April 19. Only about 2.1 million people aged above 60 or with underlying health conditions have registered for their jabs so far. Phase Two targets 9.4 million people who are at high risk of developing severe disease or death from Covid-19.
The Covid-19 Immunisation Task Force (CITF) has increased target vaccine recipients under Phase One to 647,398 individuals that it hopes to vaccinate with at least the first dose by the second week of April.