Malaysia now has one of the world's fastest vaccination rates

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia now boasts one of the fastest vaccination rates in the world, doling out more than 400,000 doses a day, out-performed in the past week only by Canada among countries of a similar size or greater, and double the pace of Australia.

Based on an analysis piece published in The Sydney Morning Herald, the online portal said amid the death and despondency in this South-East Asian nation of 32 million, there is, however, one silver lining - the vaccination rates that ramp up.

It said six weeks after entering a nationwide lockdown, Malaysia is in a state of paralysis, where hospitals and their staff are overwhelmed, the unemployed are going hungry, the economy is reeling and the infection rate has continued to climb, reaching a level twice that even of COVID-ravaged Indonesia on a per capita basis.

Quoting National COVID-19 Immunisation Programme Coordinating Minister, Khairy Jamaluddin in an exclusive interview with The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, the government, however, had been able to accelerate inoculation after two months ago renegotiating the supply and delivery of the vaccines it has purchased, 70 per cent of which are Pfizer.

"Most of our portfolio are Pfizer and then we spread our bets... we decided early on that it would be dangerous to put our eggs in one or two baskets.

"I think we are at the stage now where we really need to vaccinate ourselves out of the situation that we have found ourselves in," said Khairy as published in The Sydney Morning Herald today.

Aside from Pfizer, Malaysia has also sourced doses from China's Sinovac, AstraZeneca and the single-shot Chinese vaccine CanSino, as well as others via the United Nation's COVAX vaccine facility.

After a slow start, a quarter of the population has now received at least one dose and Malaysia's target of having 40 per cent of adults fully vaccinated by the end of August and 60 per cent by the end of September could be achieved if suppliers meet their commitments.

Khairy told the online portal that under Malaysia's renegotiated deal with Pfizer, the American pharmaceutical giant is sending 25 million doses between this month and September.

He said the scale of the outbreak has helped offset another obstacle, vaccine hesitancy, as the country's pandemic death toll rose to 6,503 on Wednesday and new infections hit another daily record of 11,618.

"Countries which were successful at suppressing and containing cases have seen their bubble burst. And I think if you look at countries which are doing well, now, you can arguably say that they were doing much, much worse before and they've been saved by the early arrival of vaccines.

"Of course, we could have done certain things better, and also, after a while, it's very difficult to get the public to adhere (to restrictions) simply because of fatigue... and I'm not blaming the public here, because to observe these very, very unnatural limitations and restrictions on your behaviour or movements (is difficult). Eventually, there will be a time when people just let their guard down," he said.

Khairy admitted that headlines on government ministers flouting the rules has damaged the credibility of the latest lockdown, saying that "leadership by example is very important".

"I think on that score, we have made some errors there," he said.

-- BERNAMA