KUALA LUMPUR: The government will take a vigorous approach towards those who refuse to be vaccinated by 'continuing to make their life difficult,' said Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin.

However, he said those who cannot be vaccinated due to health reasons will be fine as they would be provided with MySejahtera digital exemption.

"Sorry to say, if you are not vaccinated because you choose not to be vaccinated, then we will make life very difficult for you and continue to make life difficult for you.

"Cannot dine-in at restaurants, cannot go into shopping centres and we will be releasing a National Testing Strategy next week...then we will probably ask you to do regular tests that you have to pay for. The message is to get yourself vaccinated," he said.

He said this at a press conference after officiating the 11th National Acute Myocardial Infarction Course organised by the Serdang Hospital here today.

Meanwhile, Khairy said that individuals required to take booster dose for Umrah or meet conditions of other countries can make applications for it to the Ministry of Health (MOH) and expected the shots to be given from this month.

However, he said MOH was making efforts and discussing with the countries concerned not to practise discrimination pertaining to vaccines as the United Kingdom only allows Malaysians who have received Pfizer and AstraZeneca vaccines to enter the country without the need for quarantine.

"Rather than having to revaccinate Malaysians who want to go to UK without quarantine...treat all the vaccines, at least those which have been listed for emergency use under the World Health Organization (WHO), as the same.

"Like the UK, they are considering our request, hopefully they will agree and the same with Saudi Arabia ...in any case we will give the booster dose but the easier and better solution is no discrimination as far as the vaccine is concerned," he said.

Khairy also said that said he will be pushing for the move to make it compulsory for certain buildings to be equipped with automated external defibrillator (AED) units.

He said that he would discuss this with the relevant ministries as well as state governments and local authorities as it involves amendments to building by laws and would bring the matter to the Cabinet soon.

Without mentioning the targeted timeline for this, he said it will kick start with government buildings followed by other buildings.

"it (AED) must be displayed and we need to train as many people (as possible) to be first responders because there have been so many cases where people have gotten heart attacks but cannot get to hospital on time," he said.

-- BERNAMA