COVID-19 vaccine jab to take 15 to 30 minutes - Dr Adham Baba

Health Minister Datuk Seri Dr Adham Baba said the recipient needs to go through five stations; the first stop is to screen for symptoms and body temperature; the second station is for registration; the third station for consultation and immunisation agreement; the fourth station is for the actual COVID-19 vaccine jab; and the fifth station is for observation.

“From the screening of temperature to getting the shot takes about 10 to 15 minutes. Even though the observation period is 15 minutes but 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 National COVID-19 Immunisation Programme, Khairy Jamaluddin who is also Science, Technology and Innovation Minister.

The National COVID-19 Immunisation Programme will be implemented in three phases from Feb 24 with the first phase from Feb to April 2021 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 Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin and Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah, would be the first recipients of the vaccine shots on Wednesday which signifies the start of the National COVID-19 immunisation Programme which is beginning earlier than the scheduled date on Feb 26.

Dr Adham said the Health Ministry (MOH) is 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 the country.

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, Dr Adham said pregnant women as will as nursing mothers would not be given the shot based on a resolution of the COVID-19 Vaccine Supply Access Guarantee Special Committee (JKJAV).

“So far, JKJAV maintains that such group should not be given the vaccination,” he said.

Universiti Putra Malaysia Microbiology lecturer Assoc. Prof Dr Niazlin Mohd Taib was reported as calling for expecting women as well as nursing mothers to skip the jab to avoid side effects as there are no clinical evidence to support using the vaccine for this group.