JOHOR BAHRU: A total of 7,402 firemen in the country will be among the first-phase recipients of the COVID-19 vaccine.

Deputy Housing and Local Government Minister Datuk Seri Dr Ismail Abd Muttalib said 999 of them were in Sarawak, 945 in Selangor, 784 in and 740 in Sabah.

"Overall, there are approximately 15,000 firemen in Malaysia and the vaccine will be administered to them in stages.

"We will leave matters related to the vaccination to the Ministry of Health to decide," he told Bernama after visiting Larkin Fire and Rescue station here last night.

The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine is expected to arrive in Malaysia tomorrow and the immunisation exercise is divided into three phases, with the first phase from Feb 26 to April 2021 for the frontliners, the second phase from April to August 2021 for those in high-risk groups and the third phase from May 2021 to February 2022 for adults aged 18 and above.

-- BERNAMA