KUALA LUMPUR, June 3 — The Selangor state government today denied the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation’s (MOSTI) claim that 2.9 million Covid-19 vaccine doses have been delivered to the state.
Selangor state executive councillor in charge of public health Dr Siti Mariah Mahmud said in a statement that as of June 1, the Selangor state health department (JKNS) — which is under the federal Ministry of Health (MOH) — has received 615,210 coronavirus vaccine doses: 434,070 (Pfizer-BioNTech), 146,440 (Sinovac), and 34,700 (AstraZeneca-Oxford).
Dr Siti Mariah also said, without referencing a date, that according to statistics from the Bilik Gerakan Negeri Selangor, a total of 425,970 doses have been administered, comprising 233,874 doses in the first phase and 192,096 doses in the second phase of the National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme (PICK). This means Selangor just has 189,240 vaccine doses left in storage.
As of June 1, according to the Special Committee on Ensuring Access to Covid-19 Vaccine Supply (JKJAV), Selangor has administered 429,011 doses, while as of June 2, the latest data available from JKJAV, Selangor has administered 447,570 doses. Both figures differ from Dr Siti Mariah’s figures of 425,970 doses administered.
“I have referred this issue to JKNS and JKNS said that as of now, the amount of vaccines delivered to Selangor is insufficient,” Dr Siti Mariah said in a statement today.
“Therefore, the issue of Selangor receiving a supply of 2.9 million vaccine doses does not arise and it is impossible for Selangor to have more than 2.5 million doses in storage.”
MOSTI Minister Khairy Jamaluddin, in a Covid-19 Immunisation Task Force (CITF) joint press conference with Health Minister Dr Adham Baba last Monday, stated that Selangor had received 2,909,670 Covid-19 vaccine doses to date, as he listed the amount of vaccine deliveries to other states and federal territories. (Video timestamp: Minute 31:00 onwards).
As of May 30, according to statistics posted by JKJAV, Selangor had administered 398,029 doses, comprising 258,602 first doses and 139,427 second doses.
CodeBlue reported earlier today data provided by Khairy and his office to the press last Monday on the breakdown of Covid-19 vaccine deliveries to states, including the 2.9 million doses delivered to Selangor as of May 30, the biggest allocation in Malaysia.
CodeBlue also reported that some 2.5 million doses were left unused in Selangor, based on the some 400,000 doses that had been administered in the state by May 30, according to JKJAV data.
Dr Siti Mariah explained today that Covid-19 vaccine distribution is managed completely by MOH, where allocated vaccine supply for the state is delivered to JKNS, channelled to the pharmacy department, and distributed to the district health offices and PPV for administration according to set distribution.
“I also find much confusion arising from the data sourced from MOSTI through the article. First, the stated data is not in line with statistics on the delivery and receipt of Covid-19 vaccines in Selangor,” she said.
“Secondly, some states had administered more vaccines than they received. This situation shows that the data produced is inaccurate and extremely confusing.
“Selangor has the capacity to administer a higher daily rate of shots to the arm than the current rate. However, we are unable to mobilise PPV (Covid-19 vaccination centres) to the maximum level because Selangor has only received the amount of vaccines as stated.”
In CodeBlue’s report, CodeBlue highlighted that MOSTI’s statistics on vaccine deliveries to states, however, showed peculiar discrepancies, where Sarawak, Perak, Kuala Lumpur, Kedah, Pahang, Kelantan, Negeri Sembilan, Terengganu, and Labuan administered more vaccine doses than they received. MOSTI was unable to explain the discrepancies at the time of writing when queried by CodeBlue.
