Health minister Dr Adham Baba said the first stop would be to screen for symptoms and body temperature; the second station for registration; the third for consultation and immunisation agreement; the fourth for the actual Covid-19 vaccine jab; and the fifth station for observation before release.
“From the screening of temperature to getting the shot takes about 10 to 15 minutes. Even though the observation period is 15 minutes, we need to provide adequate time for monitoring,” he said in a media statement after conducting a simulation exercise for the National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme here today.
Also present was the coordinating minister for the programme, Khairy Jamaluddin who is also the science, technology and innovation minister.
The immunisation programme will be implemented in three phases from Feb 24 with the first phase until April for frontline workers, involving 500,000 people.
Phase 2 from April to August, will see the immunisation of high-risk groups, namely senior citizens and vulnerable groups aged 65 years and above, while the third phase involves adults aged 18 and above who will receive the vaccine between May this year and February next year, targeting more than 13.7 million people.
Khairy was earlier reported as saying that Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin and health director-general Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah would be the first recipients of the vaccine shots tomorrow, to signify the start of the immunisation programme.
Adham said the health ministry (MoH) was prepared for the first phase of the programme involving 572,588 frontline personnel registered as at Feb 21.
According to him, 532 PPVs have been identified throughout the country for the largest immunisation programme in Malaysia.
He added that the PPVs have been categorised from one to eight based on the number of personnel and area of the place with a category one PPV manned by 10 MoH personnel and 10 non-MoH personnel.
In another development, Adham said pregnant women as well as nursing mothers would not be given the shot based on a resolution of the Covid-19 Vaccine Supply Access Guarantee Special Committee.
“The committee maintains that the group should not be given the vaccination,” he said.
Universiti Putra Malaysia microbiology lecturer Dr Niazlin Mohd Taib was reported as calling for expectant women as well as nursing mothers to skip the jab to avoid side effects.
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