Malaysia’s COVID-19 Immunization Program To Kick Off On 26 February

Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin alongside Science, Technology, & Innovation Minister Khairy Jamaluddin and Health Minister Dr Adham Baba has officially launched the National COVID-19 Immunization Program (NCIP) today by unveiling its official handbook and the accompanying website.

At the same time, PM Muhyiddin has also confirmed that the first shipment of Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine will arrive in Malaysia on 21 February 2021. Subsequently, Phase 1 of the immunization program will then kick off on 26 February 2021 with himself as the first recipient of the vaccine which is meant to help convince the public to accept the vaccine.

As noted earlier, the NCIP involved three phases that will be taking place from the end of this month until February 2022. Phase 1 of the program which will take place until April 2021 will be involving 500,000 frontliners.

It will be then followed by Phase 2 from April to August 2021 which will cover high-risk individuals that includes those with chronic diseases as well as the elderly. As for the general population with the age of 18 years old and above, they will be able to obtain the vaccine in Phase 3 that will start from May 2021 until February 2022.

The exact registration date for the vaccine was not revealed today but Minister Khairy has previously stated that it will begin sometime in March 2022. The public can register themselves through MySejahtera, NCIP’s official website, or dedicated hotline while manual registration will also be opened at public and private health facilities. The government has also planned to register those who reside in rural areas via outreach program.

The distribution of the vaccine will take place in 605 vaccination centres throughout the country although their exact locations have not yet been revealed by the authorities. Minister Dr Adham has previously pointed out that around 126,000 people are expected to be vaccinated per day through NCIP.