KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 26 — The Special Committee on Covid-19 Vaccine Supply (JKJAV) website did not crash due to heavy user traffic on May 26, 2021, when opt-in registrations for the AstraZeneca-Oxford Covid-19 vaccine were made available for the second time.
Science, Technology and Innovation Minister Dr Adham Baba, in a written reply in Parliament yesterday, said there were technical issues that caused some delays in the booking process, but denied that a crash occurred, as the website was continuously processing an average of 3,000 to 7,000 bookings per second.
“This explains why many had difficulties getting an appointment for the AstraZeneca vaccine at the time,” Dr Adham said.
A total of 1,261,000 AstraZeneca vaccine doses were offered on the day, and in less than an hour, all appointment slots were snapped up.
He was responding to a question from Lembah Pantai MP Fahmi Fadzil on why the website had failed to function for the AstraZeneca opt-in programme on May 26, and the costs involved to set up the site.
Registrations for the AstraZeneca vaccines were supposed to open at noon, but was delayed by 20 minutes, due to a technical issue with the configuration system, Dr Adham said.
At noon, there were already 3.6 million users on the site. The technical glitch prevented some users from accessing some features and buttons on the page, he added.
“This issue has been proactively addressed by the website’s operator. Individuals whose registrations were incomplete have been contacted by the Covid-19 Immunisation Task Force (CITF) secretariat to ensure that they get an appointment for their vaccinations,” said Dr Adham.
He added that the online registration system was developed at no cost.
