KUALA LUMPUR: Senior citizens will be administered with the Sinovac vaccine when Phase 2 of the National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme (NIP) starts on April 19.
Science, Technology and Innovation Minister Khairy Jamaluddin said this was decided by the Special Committee for Ensuring Access to Covid-19 Vaccine Supply (JKJAV) for vaccine recipients aged 60 and over.
This, he said, was after the committee’s evaluation on vaccine candidates which had taken into consideration the latest data and the progress of its use in other countries.
“The vaccine is found to be safe, effective and stable for senior citizens. For example, countries that had inoculated its population aged above 60 are Turkey (11 million), Brazil (7 million) and Chile (3 million).
“JKJAV has reviewed the data and based on the trials in Brazil in which its paper is currently under review, (it showed that) the secondary efficacy against moderate and severe cases of Covid-19 for Sinovac were 83.7 per cent for moderate cases and 100 per cent for severe cases.
“So this vaccine is effective in preventing severe cases of Covid-19. This is precisely what we want to avoid for Phase 2 and for the senior citizens because over 80 per cent mortality from Covid-19 are those aged 60 and above.
“So you can give them 100 per cent protection against severe cases of Covid-19 which the Sinovac vaccine does afford and provide. This is something we need to continue and use to protect senior citizens.
“This would be an important part of Phase 2 since the Sinovac vaccine has been cleared to be used for senior citizens,” Khairy said in a Covid-19 Immunisation Task Force (CITF) press conference.
Also present was Health Minister Datuk Seri Dr Adham Baba.
Khairy also said Phase 2 of the NIP will proceed as planned where up until today, 31,776 appointments for vaccine recipients have been sent out via the MySejahtera application as well as Short Messaging System (SMS).
Over 50,000 notifications, detailing the time and date of appointments, will be blasted out today.
Of the 31,776 appointments that were issued, Khairy said 13,218 have responded that they will be present while those who have not answered were 18,215.
A small number of people, amounting to 343 have replied saying that they would not be attending, said Khairy.
Those who had refused the first appointment will be issued with a second one.
Should they turn it down again, we will investigate why they do not want to be immunised, said Khairy.
“I ask those who have received the appointments to respond if they are up to getting vaccinated or otherwise. This would enable us to plan at the vaccination centres.
“If we do not know how many are coming (to get inoculated), there may be wastage, insufficient vaccines or even over supply,” said Khairy.-NST