KUALA LUMPUR, May 14 — Malaysia’s Covid-19 vaccination rate increased by 63.5 per cent to an average 46,684 daily shots to the arm in the week of May 5 to 11.
The nation recorded an average 28,551 jabs a day in the previous week of April 28 to May 4. On May 10, a record daily high of 61,200 coronavirus vaccine doses were administered across the country, amid a surge of outbreaks nearly overwhelming the health care system in multiple states.
The national Covid-19 immunisation programme has hovered between about 19,000 and less than 29,000 vaccine doses administered daily since March, before spiking to nearly 47,000 shots to the arm a day in the past week.
Vaccine Minister Khairy Jamaluddin previously told CodeBlue last January that the government aimed to vaccinate 75,000 people a day from March. He estimated last month that vaccine supply would match demand from June, amid slow vaccine deliveries from manufacturers.
According to Our World In Data, Malaysia administered 0.12 vaccine doses per 100 people on May 12, slightly higher than Indonesia’s 0.1 rate on May 11.
Australia and South Korea — which started their Covid-19 inoculation drives at about the same time as Malaysia last February — administered 0.23 and 0.16 vaccine doses per 100 people respectively.
In terms of population coverage, however, South Korea and Indonesia have respectively covered 7.21 per cent and 4.99 per cent of their total populations who received at least one dose of the coronavirus vaccine as of May 11, compared to 3.57 per cent in Malaysia.
As of May 11, about 2.2 per cent of Malaysia’s 32.7 million population have been fully vaccinated. Nearly 1.2 million people have received at least one dose of the Covid-19 vaccine, including 724,517 fully vaccinated individuals.
The country’s highest vaccination coverage was recorded in the country’s smallest state and territories of Perlis, Labuan, and Putrajaya as of May 11.
Labuan, the smallest territory in the country, recorded the highest vaccination coverage in terms of total population that has received at least one dose of the Covid-19 vaccine at 12.6 per cent, followed by Putrajaya (11.8 per cent) and Perlis (7.6 per cent).
In terms of fully vaccinated people, the administrative centre of Putrajaya recorded the country’s highest total population coverage at 7.7 per cent, followed by Perlis (5.4 per cent) and Labuan (4.1 per cent).
On total population coverage with at least one dose of the coronavirus vaccine, the current epicentres of the Covid-19 epidemic reported the following rates: Kuala Lumpur (6.8 per cent), Sarawak (4.4 per cent), Kelantan (3.0 per cent), and Selangor (2.4 per cent).
