Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin has launched the National COVID-19 Immunisation Programme handbook, on February 16, 2021. The handbook details the country’s vaccination plan from completed from registration to post-immunisation observation. The handbook is currently available on the government’s newly-launched COVID-19 Vaccine Supply Access Guarantee Special Committee (JKJAV) website.
The prime minister announced that the first batch of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines will be arriving on February 21, 2021 and the country will begin implementing the immunisation programme on February, 26 starting with the frontliners.
The second phase will involve high-risk groups such as the elderly and those suffering from chronic conditions and the third phase will be for the remaining adult population aged 18 and above.
Even though vaccinations will be administered free for all Malaysian, the government has not made it mandatory. Citizens will have to voluntarily register and provide consent in order to receive the jabs.
However, Muhyiddin encouraged individuals to get vaccinated if they did not want to face restraints in travelling or engaging in business in the future.
There are five different ways of registration for the vaccination
- MySejahtera application
- JKJAV website
- A specialised phone hotline (yet to be announced)
- Manual registrations at public and private medical facilities
- Manual registrations with state government rural outreach programmes
Applicants will be notified by call or SMS of the hospital and the appointment date to be administered the vaccination. The vaccination process will roughly take two weeks to a month to complete – depending on the vaccine dosage schedule.
The government is aiming to vaccinate over 26.5 million citizens by February 2022. For more information regarding the vaccination programme, you can go to this website.
