State health, agriculture, agro-based industry and rural development committee chairman, Dr Norlela Ariffin said the state government decided on this because many vaccine recipients refused to accept Pfizer as a booster dose since they had received the Sinovac vaccine as the first and second doses.

“Sinovac and AstraZeneca have recently been approved as booster dose vaccines and we will start giving this vaccine to those who reject the Pfizer vaccine, from next month,” she said during the state legislative assembly sitting today.

She said this in reply to a question from Gooi Hsiao-Leung (PH-Bukit Tengah) on the state government’s plans to expedite the implementation of the Covid-19 vaccine booster dose for Penangites.

According to Norlela, as of Nov 29, the number of booster dose recipients in Penang was only 84,541 people despite the various approaches taken. She said Penang was among the five lowest states in terms of booster dose recipients.

She added that the state health department is working with ProtectHealth to increase the involvement of private health facilities as well as increase the number of doses dispensed at the facilities which are currently administering the booster doses.

She added that as of Nov 24, there were 86 private clinics, eight private hospitals and three vaccination centres offering booster dose shots.

To increase the number of Covid-19 booster doses administered, Norlela also proposed that the state assemblymen recommend halls that can be used in their respective constituencies to help reduce costs.

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